Since the 1950s, China has played a significant role in North Africa, supporting liberation movements throughout the region. In the early 2000s, China became the leading exporter to all North African countries. In the Gulf countries, China’s engagement has mainly focused on energy imports, with about half of China’s oil imports coming from five Middle Eastern countries: Saudi Arabia (16 percent), Iraq (11 percent), Oman (7.3 percent), the United Arab Emirates (5.5 percent), and Kuwait (5.1 percent).
Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, a global strategy for Chinese-led infrastructure development, China has significantly increased its presence in the MENA region, involving 19 Arab countries in the BRI and becoming the largest foreign investor and trading partner in several countries.
In 2016, the Chinese government released its Arab Policy Paper, which stresses the importance of building relations with Arab countries based on five principles of peaceful coexistence:
mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefits, and peaceful coexistence
China’s technology outreach to the region
Under the umbrella of the Digital Silk Road (DSR) initiative, the digital component of the BRI that was launched in 2015 with the aim to put China at the forefront of technological innovation, China has boosted tech cooperation in the region. The DSR has allowed major Chinese tech companies such as Huawei to expand their presence in the region, providing a wide range of digital infrastructures at competitive prices.
The MENA region is home to several DSR projects. In 2018, the China Satellite Navigation Office and the Arab Information and Communication Technology Organisation launched the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System’s in Tunisia, to train local scientists in satellite navigation.
Several telecommunication companies in the region have signed 5G contracts with Huawei. In 2017, the latter launched the Cairo OpenLab for R&D activities in Egypt, opened its first African factory in Algeria in 2019, and established partnerships with several universities across the region to train local students and workers. In terms of AI development, in 2022, the Saudi Company for Artificial Intelligence (SCAI) announced an investment of around $206 million in partnership with China’s SenseTime, with the aim of developing Saudi Arabia’s AI tech infrastructure.
Why has China succeeded in MENA markets?
There are various factors enabling sino-MENA digital economic cooperation:
A Win-Win partnership
The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the importance of embracing digital transformation. Since then, several MENA countries have stepped up their policy efforts to diversify and digitise their economies. MENA’s digital economy is set to reach $400 billion mark by 2030, with edtech and healthcare leading the way, making it an attractive market for Chinese companies. For MENA governments, the DSR is an opportunity to bridge the digital divide and create quality jobs, contributing to realising the right to work, to equal pay and to protection from unemployment, which is guaranteed under Article 23 of the United Declarations of Human Rights (UDHR) and Articles 6 & 7 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), as well as the right to an adequate standard of living as enshrined in Article 25 of the UDHR, Article 11 of the ICESCR, and Article 38 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights (ACHR).
Affordability of technologies
Affordability is one of the key factors behind the spread of Chinese tech in the region. Smartphone brands such as Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi are becoming increasingly popular among the region’s consumers due to their competitive prices, impacting the ability of local and Western companies to compete.
China’s non-interference policy
MENA leaders have sought to diversify their geopolitical alliances and reduce their dependency on Western powers. In this context, China’s development cooperation, based on non-interference in internal affairs, represents an attractive alternative for the region’s autocrats, offering a path to economic growth while preserving national sovereignty and eliminating pressures to promote democracy and human rights.
China’s preference over Western powers
According to the 2022 Arab Barometer, citizens in seven of the nine surveyed countries (Algeria, Iraq, Palestine, Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon, and Sudan) preferred China to the US. China’s favourable perception among the region’s citizens is an important advantage that is being leveraged by Beijing.
Geostrategic dimensions of China’s tech outreach
MENA’s digital economy potential represents an opportunity for Chinese companies, but China’s motives are also geostrategic. Technology supremacy is a source of power in the digital age and, through the DSR, China aims to extend its digital influence to those areas where it has national interests, as highlighted by China’s leader Xi Jinping’s speech.
Since 2018, the US has been trying to convince countries not to engage with Chinese technologies, including drafting a plan to restrict investment, arguing that it could pose risks to national security. In this context, China sees digital cooperation with the MENA region as crucial for countering US attempts to curb its growing influence. Indeed, in 2018, Chinese investment declined in all regions except the MENA.
Implications of China’s growing digital presence in the region
For MENA countries
Digital cooperation with China offers many economic and social benefits, such as job creation or better access to education, hereby contributing to realising the right to work, to equal pay and to protection from unemployment (Article 23 UDHR, Articles 6 & 7 ICESCR), the right to an adequate standard of living (Article 25 UDHR; Article 11 ICESCR; Article 38 ACHR), as well as the right to quality education (Article 13 ICESCR; Article 28 & 29 UNCRC).
Chinese companies can provide advanced tech at a reasonable cost, helping to bridge the digital divide. However, China does not require countries to democratise as a condition for cooperation, which makes Chinese tech very attractive to many governments of the region seeking to advance their digital agendas, but can have a negative impact on human rights. Huawei, for instance, has been accused of assisting African governments in spying their citizens for political purposes.
Given the region’s history of political suppression, these technologies could potentially be used by authoritarian regimes to increase control and surveillance and restrict freedom of expression, which may have a negative impact on the right to privacy and freedom from attacks on one’s reputation as enshrined under Article 12 of the UDHR, Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Article 16 of the ACHR; as well as the right to freedom of opinion and expression, guaranteed under Article 19 of the UDHR, Article 19 of the ICCPR and Article 32 of the ACHR.
For EU relations with MENA countries
China’s digital cooperation with MENA countries has become a concern for both EU and US policymakers, leading to the establishment of the US-EU Trade and Technology Council in 2021. Some observers warn that Chinese influence over digital governance in the region may have human rights implications, as the data collected could potentially be used to exert influence, shape political perceptions, promote authoritarianism, and weaken democracy.
If the recently approved EU AI Act fails to have a global impact, this could further benefit China, which is able to offer affordable technologies without regulatory requirements, such as AI-enabled digital surveillance infrastructure. For instance, Israel’s police and defence forces have already installed surveillance technologies from Chinese companies.
Looking forward
Policy recommendations for MENA countries
While digital integration through the adoption of Chinese technologies could bring many benefits to the region, the wider implications of increasing reliance on Chinese technologies beyond the economic sphere should be considered.
- Address the challenges posed by these technologies, such as data protection, through human rights-compliant legislation.
- Ensure meaningful tech transfer to help build thriving knowledge economies.
- Move away from bilateral trade discussions towards greater regional cooperation, which could increase bargaining power with Chinese tech companies.
Policy recommendations for the EU
The EU still has an opportunity to contribute to the digital transformation of those MENA countries that are not yet fully connected.
- Offer concrete and affordable alternatives to Chinese tech, with the aim of preventing China from becoming a major supplier of authoritarian tech in the region.
- Mobilise the GDPR as a pressure tool to ensure that MENA countries’ data protection laws are aligned with EU standards.
- Develop new cooperation strategies based on horizontality, moving away from imposing a one-size-fits-all model on all countries and tailoring them to local development priorities. This is a prerequisite for the EU to remain a relevant actor in the region.
