In recent years, China has sought to increase its political and economic influence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Chinese tech giants such as Alibaba and Huawei have established a strong presence in the region, striking a wide variety of deals with MENA governments to provide digital infrastructure. Huawei, at the end of July, sign a memorandum of understanding with Bahrain to improve broadband services in the country. This followed an agreement in May to launch Egypt’s first public cloud service in Cairo and a large Arabic language model. Chinese companies are also developing new submarine cable networks with Gulf states, starting with Pakistan.

China’s digital forays into the MENA region are part of its Digital Silk Road (DSR), a complement to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). President Xi Jinping declared in 2017, that China should “intensify cooperation in pioneering areas such as the digital economy, artificial intelligence (AI), nanotechnology and quantum computing…”. To this end, Beijing has actively supported the expansion of Chinese technology companies in the region, would have providing tens of billions of dollars in financial aid to Huawei to fuel its global rise. China also aims to promote its digital standards and internet governance model abroad. Various countries in the MENA region, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have signed DSR MoUs.

Cloud competition heats up

As more people connect to the Internet and the region’s digital economy grows, the question of where to store data has become a lucrative business for Western and Chinese technology companies. As data storage and other services become increasingly available through cloud computing, that is, over the Internet, technology companies like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Alibaba have signed contracts to build the infrastructure enabling cloud computing in the MENA region.

All major Western technology companies have created cloud regions in the MENA region. AWS And Google have each established three cloud regions, while Microsoft has established four of its Azure cloudy regions. Oracle has launched five commercial cloud regions since 2020 and IBM has installed data centers in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

China Alibaba launched a cloud region in Saudi Arabia and one in the United Arab Emirates, while Huawei operates a cloud region in Egypt and one in Saudi Arabia. Chinese tech giant Tencent announcement in March, it plans to expand its cloud operations in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Competition in the MENA cloud market is expected to intensify as all major cloud operators have indicated expansion plans.

Competition in the MENA cloud market is expected to intensify as all major cloud operators have indicated expansion plans. The Gulf will remain a key target in this regard, as Saudi Arabia and the UAE have announced ambitious plans to roll out AI initiatives to diversify their economies. Management consulting firm McKinsey estimated that cloud services in 10 MENA countries “could generate a value of up to $183 billion by 2030, equivalent to around 6% of the region’s current GDP.”

China’s Quiet Strategy

The Digital Silk Road is only part of Beijing’s broader agenda. While China is becoming increasingly confrontational in its immediate periphery, notably in the South China Sea, Beijing is pursuing a much calmer strategy in the Middle East. The early years of the BRI in Middle Eastern states were characterized by large infrastructure, energy and industrial projects supported by loans from its own state-owned enterprises such as the Export-Import Bank and other financial institutions. credit.

For example, Chinese consortia have participated in the expansion of Suez Canal in Egypt and the development of a new port in DuqmOman. At the same time, Chinese companies have increased their influence in the raw materials sector: more than a third of Iraq’s oil and gas deposits are now exploited. managed directly or indirectly by Chinese companies like CNPC or CNOOC. Through projects like these, Beijing has invested more than US$200 billion in BRI projects between 2013 and 2019, with countries like Iran, Egypt and Pakistan being the main targets for investments.

Beijing’s goals with the BRI in the Middle East include reducing domestic economic overcapacity (particularly in the construction sector), ensuring access to strategic energy resources, and politically establishing its new regional partner . Just ten years after its launch, it became clear that the BRI strategy had largely paid off; by 2023, China has become the largest country business partner from almost all countries in the region, while Confucius Institutes it is now found in Tehran, Cairo and Riyadh.

Beijing’s newfound confidence

China is also significantly expanding its influence in the region’s security policy landscape. In addition to weapons and weapons technology from older systems, China’s arms industry is also increasingly present at regional security fairs such as IDEX in Dubai with the latest generation products. The Chinese Digital Silk Road plays a decisive role in this context. With computer networks, cloud regions, and other digital infrastructure forming the backbone of our modern economic and security infrastructure, it makes perfect sense for China to gain a greater foothold in the region. From a security policy perspective, surveillance software, drone systems, land and submarine data cables and relay stations play a particularly crucial role here.

For two years, Chinese manufacturers have managed to compete with Western companies with competitive products.

For two years, Chinese manufacturers have managed to compete with Western companies with competitive products. In the drone segment, the United Arab Emirates alone has ordered more than 500 drone systems between 2010-2024, more than a third of which were placed with Chinese manufacturers such as AVIC or CASC. Chinese companies have also been able to expand their influence in the software and hardware sector for surveillance and security technologies. Partly in cooperation with UAE companies, Chinese suppliers such as Huawei, iS00N and Chengdu404 have provided personal surveillance and computer espionage technologies to the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia since 2019.

China’s increased involvement in modernizing the MENA region’s digital infrastructure has further implications from a digital perspective. China’s model of Internet governance stands in stark contrast to the model promoted by the EU and the United States globally. China, according to a recent MERICS reporthas become a “major driver” of Internet fragmentation, “as it creates de facto barriers in its drive to make the Internet “secure and controllable.” The EU and the United States are among the 70 signatories to the agreement. Declaration for the Future of the Internetwhich highlights the importance of an “open, free, global, interoperable, reliable and secure Internet”.

China’s efforts to promote its Internet governance model in the MENA region date back to the last decade. Beijing would have hosted media officials from states including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for sessions on censorship and surveillance, according to Freedom House. The NGO links China’s efforts to promote its governance model to the rise of digital authoritarianism around the world.

Although vehemently denied by Chinese technology companies such as Huawei, security experts and Western governments remain concerned that digital infrastructure deployed in the MENA region and elsewhere poses a threat to data security and privacy , and that the Chinese state could use digital infrastructure for commercial purposes. for espionage purposes.

Recommendations for policy makers

China will continue to play an important role in the region’s digital transformation, as various MENA governments view striking deals with Beijing not only as a cost-effective way to modernize infrastructure, but also as a way to diversify their dependence on the United States. Nevertheless, Western policymakers can take several steps to counter Beijing’s malign influence in the region.

A key measure to slow China’s growing influence is to offer economically competitive alternatives and also promote an open internet governance model.

A long-term measure should be the expansion of global infrastructure initiatives with digital elements, such as the EU’s Global Gateway strategy and the G7 Global Infrastructure and Investment Partnership, with a focus on reliable networks. A key measure to slow China’s growing influence is to offer economically competitive alternatives and also promote an open internet governance model.

Such efforts should also be supported by development finance offerings and partnerships with private sector technology companies. The EU and US can use their long-standing ties in areas such as trade and security to pressure regional governments to focus on installing digital infrastructure from service providers. trust and guarantee digital rights.

Given the common interests of the EU and the United States in supporting the digital transformation of the MENA region, both sides of the Atlantic should improve their cooperation in this area to work together in a more coordinated manner to enable more efficient allocation of resources and avoid duplication of efforts. The EU-US Trade and Technology Council could be a possible forum in this context. The initiative of the American government with the help of Microsoft Developing new offerings in the field of chips and cloud systems can also be a good starting point for further cooperation with European manufacturers.

Despite Beijing’s growing influence in the region, Chinese strategies are also error-prone and not all Chinese projects succeed. This offers Western governments and businesses the opportunity to establish themselves as more trusted partners in the digital domain.

The views represented in this article are those of the authors and do not express the official position of the Wilson Center.