Checking Chinese Influence in Kuwait
Udumbara
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The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is engaged in a global effort to undermine and displace American influence around the globe.
Washington requires a global effort to expose and counter CCP stratagems and must give special attention to key battlegrounds, such as in Kuwait.
Before the United States and a coalition of 40 other countries deployed 700,000 troops in early 1991 for “Desert Storm” to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi invasion, China had sold Iraq about $5 billion in weapons, mainly to fight its 1980–1988 war with Iran, which also purchased Chinese weapons and embarked on an expansive military technical relationship with China.
But after Kuwait’s liberation, Iraq remained a threat to Kuwait, forcing the United States to organize United Nations-approved “no-fly zones” to bar Iraqi air maneuvers.
By the late 1990s, China was arming Iraq to help circumvent the no-fly zones, posing increased dangers to U.S. combat aircraft.
Specifically, China was selling and installing fiber-optic cables, produced by its early computer-internet behemoth Huawei, to enable linkages between dispersed Iraqi radar and anti-aircraft weapons.
This helped Iraq reduce electronic signatures, making it more difficult for the United States to detect its military systems and thus minimizing the country’s vulnerability to U.S. defensive airstrikes.
But on Feb. 16, 2001, U.S. aircraft struck Iraq’s new Chinese cable anti-aircraft weapon nodes.
It chose to strike on a Friday, the Muslim Jumu’ah or day of prayer, to reduce the chances that U.S. bombs would kill Chinese engineers.
Kuwait was a major staging position for the 2003 “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” and in 2004, was designated a Major Non-NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Ally of the United States.
Today, Kuwait is a major American ally in the Middle East and, pursuant to a 1991 Defense Cooperation Agreement, hosts about 13,500 U.S. military personnel across several bases. These include about 9,000 at Camp Arifjan, a major logistics support base; Ali al-Salem Air Base, which hosts U.S. Air Force combat aircraft; and Camp Patriot, which serves as a major logistics support base for the U.S. Navy and Marines.
The CCP has pursued a long-term strategy to displace and replace American influence in the Middle East, using its buildup of Iran as a powerful conventional and future nuclear military threat, to leverage ever greater influence over the Arab states with which it aims to build ever greater positive political-economic and military influence.
The CCP has used the combination of an Iranian nuclear threat and positive commercial ties to advance the idea that Beijing would be better at promoting “peace” than Washington.
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However, the CCP’s ambition of building Iran into a nuclear threat to undermine confidence in American strength was severely set back by Israel’s 12-day (June 13–24, 2025) war to attack Iran’s military power and political leadership ahead of the Trump administration’s June 21–22 “Operation Midnight Hammer” B-2 bomber and F-35A strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Despite the United States’ massive expenditures in defending Middle East stability and addressing the direct threats to Kuwait’s security, a growing number of American businesses complained that the Kuwaiti government was not paying its bills.
Most recently, controversy has arisen over Kuwait’s alleged refusal to pay American contractors for work on the massive Al Zour refinery.
Kuwait’s treatment of American businesses led Congress to insert language into H. Rept. 119-217—its 2026 National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs appropriations bill—to ensure that Emir Amir Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and the rest of Kuwait’s leadership pay what they still owe to American interests.
But even more concerning to the United States is the degree to which Kuwait is aiding the CCP’s strategy in the Middle East.
China’s strategy has included its 2004 China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, for which Kuwait was a founding member, and Beijing has since convinced Kuwait to become an early member of its “Belt and Road Initiative” in 2014, offering massive development subsidies.
Since 2015, China has been Kuwait’s largest trading partner.
Then, by 2018, Beijing designated Kuwait as a “strategic partner” of China, which usually requires elevated alignment with CCP strategic and economic goals, and of course, giving the CCP free rein in attacking democracies like Taiwan and Japan.
In the military sphere, Kuwait was one of the first Gulf states to sign a military cooperation agreement with China in 1995.
Following an April 2019 meeting between Chinese Ambassador Li Minggang and Chief of Staff of the Kuwait Armed Forces Lieutenant-General Mohammad Khaled Al-Khudher, the Chinese Embassy stated: “Military exchanges and cooperation between China and Kuwait are an important part of bilateral relations. In recent years, the two militaries have witnessed increasingly close high-level exchanges, fruitful military-industry and military-trade cooperation, which demonstrates the depth of political mutual trust between the two sides.
“China is ready to work with Kuwait to implement the consensus reached by the two leaders, enhance military-to-military exchanges and cooperation, push further the all-round development of bilateral relations.”
While Kuwait has purchased some Chinese weapons, including Norinco 155 mm artillery systems, and a People’s Liberation Army Navy task force has visited Kuwait three times since 2011, the United States remains the primary source of Kuwait’s weapons.
But in late July, Kuwaiti sources revealed that a new Chinese ammunition factory would soon open in Kuwait.
“This project is a milestone in our cooperation, and its inauguration is expected soon,” according to Sheikh Abdullah Meshal Al-Sabah, Kuwait’s deputy minister of defense, as reported on July 29 by the Kuwait Times.
This report also noted that “Kuwait and China are currently engaged in several joint defense projects, most notably the near completion of a factory for medium and light ammunition.”
While a seemingly small beginning, the potential for the China–Kuwait military technical relationship to grow is illustrated by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which have purchased and now coproduce many more advanced Chinese weapons.
The Kuwait Times report also noted that Chinese Chargé d’Affaires Liu Xiang “praised Kuwait’s consistent support for China’s global initiatives, noting that His Highness the Amir Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah was the first Gulf leader to endorse China’s Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and Global Civilization Initiative.”
These three Chinese “initiatives” are all diplo-speak programs that enable Chinese diplomats to push target countries in directions that serve Beijing’s goals of creating a new global power order that excludes the United States and undermines all other democracies.
For this reason, the United States requires a strategic information campaign to regularly identify, assess, and explain the CCP’s hegemonic goals and the tools it uses to achieve them.
This should include an annual U.S. State Department report to Congress and regular updates when Beijing hosts major meetings of one of its proto-alliance networks, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or the China-Arab Cooperation Forum.
Such an American-led information campaign, offered to all nations, would go far to help convince key allies caught up in CCP influence campaigns, like Kuwait, of the ultimate danger to their own freedom and sovereignty posed by the CCP.
