AURORA, Colo.—China is driving wedges between the United States and Middle Eastern countries by spreading information that paints the U.S. as an unreliable partner while pitching its own military offerings as better options, according to a senior U.S. military official.
“They are opportunistic, absolutely, in the information operations sphere, and so they are very quick to point out and amplify things that come out against the U.S., whether it’s policy decisions or things that they have really no game in, [such as] the Israel-Hamas war, but they are very quick to drive wedges between us and partners and to highlight things…that make us look like either unreliable partners or irresponsible partners,” the official said on the sidelines of the AFA Warfare Symposium.
For years, China has been conducting influence operations aimed at undermining Western interests and planting disinformation around topics like Ukraine, Taiwan, and the U.S.
The country is driving “wedges when they can, and with the intent of opening up gaps so that they could potentially fill those gaps with some influence,” the official said. Those efforts include doing military training with regional actors like the United Arab Emirates, a country the United States considers “vital” to counter-terrorism efforts as well as other U.S. interests.
These concerns about China’s influence in the Middle East are intensifying as the Trump administration dismantles the United States Agency for International Development and other U.S. agencies aimed at dispersing foreign aid, stoking fears that U.S. influence will wane and China will fill those gaps.
China also sees the Middle East as ripe for economic influence and has been pitching military products at air shows in Bahrain and Egypt, the official said. And the country is quick to point out that their military wares can be delivered “cheaper and faster” than U.S. products, the official added.
Current threat landscape in the Mideast
The military official also outlined the current security situation in the Middle East—noting a decline in the activity of most Iran-backed militia groups over the past six months.
“Lebanese Hezbollah clearly has been hurt a great deal by Israel. We’ve seen the fall of the Assad regime. And so the avenues that they’ve been able to use to bring in weapons and funding have kind of collapsed on them a little bit. We see militia groups in Iraq right now being less active,” the official said.
The one outlier is the Houthis, who remain very active and continue to develop weapons in surprising and almost impressive ways, the official said.
“We see them putting together weapon systems and putting them together in ways, and giving them a try. And a lot of times they fail. When we talk about, in the military, about failing forward and being innovative … with a begrudging tip of the hat to the Houthis, they’re actually doing that and I think learning. We’ve been surprised at times with some of the things that we see them do,” the official said.
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