ANU scholar, Dr Mohammed Alsudairi was recently interviewed by Riyalpolitik, a neslout focused on the economic story of a changing Middle East. 

With China’s President Xi and President Trump scheduled to meet tomorrow, all eyes will be on what the exchange can tell us about the contours of strategic competition between the two largest economies in the world.

The Middle East will no doubt be on the agenda. The Iran conflict continues, and Washington and Beijing are making quiet moves to stake out positions across the region. But the Gulf is neither a chessboard for others’ rivalries nor a monolith. It has its own sets of logic, ambitions, and constraints that must be understood on their own terms, not just refracted through the lens of policymakers and businesses in the US and China. It’s also, not incidentally, a capital reservoir the size of which few regions can match, an emerging tech and AI infrastructure hub in its own right, and the physical and financial bridge connecting East and West. So we thought that Xi’s visit offered up a good moment to take stock of Sino-Gulf ties within the broader context of how the U.S. and China are showing up in the Middle East, particularly at this moment of seismic change in the region.

We asked Dr. Mohammed Alsudairi, one of the sharpest thinkers on Sino-Gulf relations, to help us interpret what’s moving on the techno-scientific front, how China sees its role in the Gulf, and where capital and investment are moving in both directions. As Dr. Alsudairi and his co-authors argued in their July 2026 Foreign Affairs piece, “The Gulf’s China Problem”, Beijing wants the Gulf’s trade and capital while insulating itself from the region’s security questions.

To read the full article (with full and free access), go to the RiyalPolitik site.