China’s Space Diplomacy In MENA:

THE NEW MIDDLE EASTERN BATTLEFIELD: SPACE

JAFAJ | MENA INTELLIGENCE BRIEF | August 9, 20

 

KEY JUDGMENT

China is using space cooperation to build long-term technological relationships across the Middle East and North Africa, creating potential diplomatic influence that can extend well beyond individual satellite or launch projects. A July 2026 study in the Texas National Security Review identified at least fifty China-MENA space-cooperation episodes and concluded that Beijing uses space cooperation as an instrument of diplomacy and influence.¹

The strategic significance is not simply that China is selling satellites, providing launch assistance, or participating in lunar exploration. Chinese cooperation can also introduce navigation systems, ground infrastructure, technical standards, training programs, research relationships, and other forms of technological integration that may persist long after an individual project is completed.

MENA governments, however, are not necessarily choosing between Washington and Beijing. Many are pursuing relationships with multiple powers simultaneously to obtain technology, investment, expertise, security partnerships, and greater strategic autonomy. The UAE provides a clear example of a country maintaining a close strategic relationship with the United States while simultaneously expanding selected technological and space relationships with China. ²

The emerging competition is consequently not simply about who launches the next satellite or reaches the Moon first. It is about who helps build the technological infrastructure, standards, expertise, data systems, and institutional relationships that will shape the region’s space economy for the next generation.³

The central strategic question is therefore not whether China will replace the United States in MENA space cooperation. It is whether Chinese technology and institutions become sufficiently embedded in regional space ecosystems that Beijing acquires durable influence without requiring its partners to choose China over Washington.

 

SPACE IS BECOMING DIPLOMACY

For decades, strategic competition in the Middle East centered on energy, military power, bases, shipping routes, weapons, and political alliances. Space is adding a new dimension to that competition because satellite and space-based systems increasingly support functions that extend across civilian, commercial, scientific, and national-security sectors.

Satellite systems now support communications, navigation, agriculture, environmental monitoring, transportation, disaster response, scientific research, economic development, and military capabilities. As a result, space cooperation can create relationships that extend well beyond a single launch or satellite.⁴

China’s approach reflects this broader reality. Beijing’s space diplomacy is not limited to selling or launching spacecraft. It encompasses agreements, joint missions, technology sharing, infrastructure, training, research cooperation, and other forms of engagement that can connect Chinese institutions and technologies with the emerging space capabilities of partner countries.

The Texas National Security Review study identifies this broader approach as an instrument of statecraft and finds that Beijing has tailored its space relationships toward strategically important regional states, particularly countries with growing technological capabilities and significant geopolitical positions.⁵

This distinction matters because the strategic value of a space partnership may increase over time. A satellite can create a technical relationship. A ground station can create an infrastructure relationship. Training can create a professional relationship. Shared research can create an institutional relationship. Navigation systems can create a standards and data relationship.⁶

The satellite may be the visible product.

**The relationship is the strategic asset.**

 

EGYPT, THE UAE, AND IRAN: THREE DIFFERENT MODELS

China’s space diplomacy is particularly instructive when examined through Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran. The three countries demonstrate that Beijing does not use a single model of space engagement. Instead, Chinese space cooperation can serve different national objectives—from building domestic technological capacity, to accelerating advanced capabilities, to providing an alternative source of technology for a strategically constrained partner.⁷

EGYPT — DEVELOPMENT AND CAPACITY BUILDING

Egypt represents a model centered on national development and the expansion of domestic space capabilities.

Chinese cooperation with Egypt has included satellite development, space technology cooperation, infrastructure, and participation in broader Chinese space-cooperation initiatives. The Texas National Security Review study identifies Egypt as an important MENA space partner and connects Chinese space cooperation with Egypt’s broader efforts to develop domestic space capabilities.⁸

For Cairo, the attraction is straightforward: Chinese cooperation can help expand domestic technological capacity while Egypt maintains its broader strategic relationship with Washington. Space therefore becomes a mechanism through which Egypt can acquire technology, expertise, and infrastructure without requiring a fundamental realignment of its foreign policy.

Egypt illustrates the development model of Chinese space diplomacy: technological cooperation can strengthen national capabilities while leaving room for broader relationships with other powers.

UAE — ADVANCED CAPABILITY AND STRATEGIC HEDGING

The United Arab Emirates represents a different model.

The UAE has developed a sophisticated domestic space sector while maintaining important strategic and space relationships with the United States. At the same time, the country has pursued selected cooperation with China in technology and space.⁹

This creates a form of strategic hedging. The UAE does not necessarily need to choose one great power across every technological domain. It can cooperate with Washington through one framework while pursuing selected technological relationships with Beijing through another.

That flexibility is strategically important. It allows the UAE to pursue technological advancement, economic diversification, scientific prestige, and greater strategic autonomy while maintaining important relationships with the United States.

The UAE illustrates the hedging model: space cooperation becomes another instrument through which a technologically ambitious MENA state can diversify its external partnerships without abandoning an established U.S. relationship.

IRAN — STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT AND CONSTRAINT

Iran presents a third model.

China’s relationship with Iran is considerably more politically sensitive because Iranian space capabilities intersect with national-security concerns and the broader strategic competition between Tehran, Washington, and regional U.S. partners.

The Texas National Security Review study finds that China’s cooperation with Iran reflects both opportunities and constraints. Beijing benefits from its relationship with Tehran, but it must also manage its relationships with major Arab partners such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE.¹⁰

Iran therefore illustrates both the potential and the limits of Chinese space diplomacy.

China can provide Iran with technological cooperation and access that expand Tehran’s space partnerships beyond its existing relationships, giving Beijing an important relationship with a strategically significant state. At the same time, China’s broader regional interests constrain how far Beijing can deepen cooperation with Tehran without affecting its relationships with other MENA governments.

Iran illustrates the strategic-alignment model: Chinese space cooperation can provide an important technological alternative to Western partnerships, but Beijing’s broader regional interests place limits on the relationship.

Taken together, Egypt, the UAE, and Iran demonstrate why China’s MENA space diplomacy should not be viewed as a single geopolitical strategy. China can use space cooperation to support development, facilitate strategic hedging, or strengthen relationships with states that face greater constraints in working with Western powers. The common element is not political alignment.

**It is the creation of durable technological relationships.**

 

 

THE MOON IS NOW PART OF THE COMPETITION

The competition is moving beyond Earth orbit.

China’s International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) is designed as an international framework for scientific research, lunar exploration, infrastructure development, and future utilization of lunar resources. China and Russia established the framework as an international cooperation project and have invited additional countries and organizations to participate.¹¹

MENA participation is already becoming visible.

China’s Chang’e-8 mission, currently planned for around 2029, is expected to carry international payloads from multiple countries and organizations. The China National Space Administration has identified lunar cooperation involving Egypt and Bahrain, among other international partners.¹²

The significance extends beyond the individual missions.

Participation in lunar programs creates opportunities for scientific research, payload development, technical cooperation, data exchange, and institutional relationships. As lunar activity expands, these relationships could become increasingly relevant to how MENA governments approach future lunar technology, research partnerships, and infrastructure.¹³

The strategic implication is a JAFAJ assessment: early participation could give governments greater experience and institutional familiarity as lunar activity develops.

This creates another dimension of strategic competition.

A MENA country does not necessarily have to choose between China and the United States across its entire space program. It can cooperate with Washington through one space framework while cooperating with Beijing through another.

That behavior is increasingly important to understanding the regional space environment. MENA governments may view participation in multiple space ecosystems not as a contradiction, but as a way to maximize technological access, investment, expertise, and strategic options.

The result is a space environment that differs significantly from a simple Cold War-style bloc competition. The emerging contest is less about forcing countries into exclusive camps and more about establishing relationships that remain valuable as the region’s space capabilities—and eventually its lunar capabilities—expand.

 

 

ARTEMIS VS. ILRS — BUT NOT NECESSARILY “EITHER/OR”

The United States has developed its own international framework for lunar exploration through the Artemis Accords.

The Accords establish nonbinding principles for peaceful, transparent, sustainable civil-space cooperation and emphasize interoperability, scientific-data sharing, registration of space objects, deconfliction, and responsible use of space.¹⁴

Several MENA countries have joined the U.S.-led framework, including the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.¹⁵

China and Russia, meanwhile, are developing the International Lunar Research Station and recruiting international partners.¹⁶

At first glance, the two frameworks appear to represent competing great-power approaches to international lunar cooperation:

ARTEMIS = U.S.-LED LUNAR COOPERATION FRAMEWORK

ILRS = CHINA/RUSSIA-LED LUNAR COOPERATION FRAMEWORK

But the behavior of MENA governments is more complicated.

Many governments are pursuing relationships with multiple technological ecosystems simultaneously. Participation in one framework does not necessarily require withdrawal from another.

That is not necessarily indecision.

It may be strategic hedging.

This approach can allow MENA governments to maximize access to technology, investment, expertise, scientific cooperation, prestige, and strategic options while reducing reliance on any single external power.

But strategic hedging creates an important second question:

Can a country maintain political flexibility if its underlying technology becomes increasingly tied to one external ecosystem?

That question leads to one of the less visible dimensions of China’s space diplomacy.

 

 

THE HIDDEN ISSUE: TECHNOLOGICAL EMBEDDEDNESS

Space cooperation can create long-term technological relationships that extend beyond the original project.

Once a country integrates a particular navigation system, establishes compatible ground infrastructure, trains personnel around a particular technology, or develops domestic systems around foreign platforms, changing suppliers or technical systems can become increasingly expensive and difficult.

The Texas National Security Review study identifies China’s BeiDou navigation system as an important example. Chinese cooperation involving navigation systems and related infrastructure can embed Chinese technology, standards, expertise, and operating practices into partner countries.¹⁷

The strategic significance is that the relationship can survive the original project.

The first satellite may be the beginning.

The ground station may be the beginning.

The training program may be the beginning.

The navigation system may be the beginning.

Over time, individual projects can form an interconnected technological relationship involving infrastructure, personnel, standards, data, maintenance, and future procurement.¹⁸

The strategic question is therefore not simply who supplies the hardware.

It is who becomes embedded in the system.

That distinction matters because technological relationships can influence future procurement decisions, technical standards, maintenance requirements, training pipelines, data access, and subsequent infrastructure investments.

A country can therefore maintain diplomatic relationships with multiple powers while becoming more technologically integrated with one particular ecosystem.

Space diplomacy can therefore create durable influence without requiring a formal alliance. As Chinese technology, standards, expertise, and infrastructure become more deeply embedded in partner countries, those relationships may become increasingly difficult to unwind without significant technical, financial, or institutional costs.

 

 

Produce next:

WHY THIS MATTERS TO THE UNITED STATES

The United States retains enormous advantages in space technology, scientific institutions, commercial space capabilities, launch services, and international partnerships. But technological superiority does not automatically produce diplomatic influence.

Beijing can offer a package that combines technology, infrastructure, training, and broader diplomatic relationships.¹⁹

For governments seeking to expand their technological capabilities, that combination can be attractive even when those governments maintain close security relationships with Washington.

The United States therefore faces a problem that cannot be solved simply by asking MENA governments to choose America over China.

They may not want to choose.

They want options.

The strategic challenge for Washington is consequently not merely preventing China from gaining access to MENA space programs. It is ensuring that U.S. partnerships remain sufficiently practical, accessible, and competitive that regional governments continue to see American cooperation as valuable across the full space ecosystem.

That ecosystem extends from scientific research and commercial services to lunar exploration, navigation, data, infrastructure, education, and workforce development.

The distinction is important.

The United States can retain technological superiority while losing influence in individual technological ecosystems if competing partnerships become easier to access, faster to implement, or more deeply embedded in regional institutions.²⁰

The competition is therefore partly about technology.

But it is also about availability, accessibility, standards, infrastructure, expertise, and relationships.

For Washington, the objective should not necessarily be to prevent MENA governments from cooperating with China. It should be to ensure that cooperation with the United States remains sufficiently valuable, accessible, and competitive that regional governments continue to view the American space ecosystem as an important partner in their technological development.

THE MENA SPACE ECONOMY

The strategic competition also intersects directly with economic diversification.

MENA governments increasingly view space as part of national economic development rather than simply a matter of national prestige. Space capabilities are becoming connected to artificial intelligence, telecommunications, defense, navigation, climate monitoring, agriculture, logistics, scientific research, education, and commercial investment.²¹

This changes the strategic calculation.

A country developing a domestic space sector is not simply purchasing satellites. It is building an industrial and technological ecosystem.

That ecosystem requires engineers and technical specialists, universities and research institutions, laboratories, launch access, ground stations, data systems, software, financing, international partnerships, and regulatory institutions.

Each of those requirements creates an opportunity for outside powers to participate in—and potentially become embedded within—the development process.

China’s space diplomacy is particularly relevant because Beijing can engage across multiple layers of that ecosystem. Cooperation can extend beyond spacecraft to infrastructure, technical training, navigation, research, data, and institutional relationships.²²

The strategic significance is therefore broader than the number of satellites a country operates.

The more important question is whether MENA states develop the domestic capacity to design, operate, maintain, and eventually produce space technologies themselves—and which external partners become embedded in that development process.

The region is therefore moving beyond simply purchasing space technology. Several MENA states are seeking to develop domestic capabilities in space technology, data, services, and related industrial activities. That transition makes the region’s emerging space economy an important arena for long-term technological competition.²³

The Middle East is not simply becoming a customer for space technology. It is increasingly seeking to become a producer of it.

 

 

THE BIGGER QUESTION: WHO SETS THE STANDARDS?

The most important question is not whether China will “win” the Middle Eastern space race.

That framing is too simplistic.

The more consequential question is:

Who will have the greatest influence over the technological standards, infrastructure, partnerships, and institutional relationships that shape the region’s space economy over the next twenty-five years?

That contest is already underway.

China is building relationships through satellites, navigation, lunar science, infrastructure, training, and international cooperation. The United States brings the Artemis Accords, major commercial space capabilities, extensive scientific institutions, and long-standing security relationships with many MENA governments.²⁴

The result is not a single contest between two powers. It is an increasingly competitive ecosystem in which MENA governments can draw on multiple external partners for different purposes.

One relationship may provide security cooperation. Another may provide technology. Another may provide investment. Another may provide scientific expertise or access to specialized infrastructure.

This creates both complexity and opportunity.

For MENA governments, maintaining multiple technological relationships can reduce reliance on any single external power and increase their ability to negotiate for technology, investment, expertise, and access.

But the same strategy creates an important long-term question:

Which external technologies, standards, infrastructure, and institutions become embedded deeply enough that they shape future choices?

That is why the competition over MENA space is not simply a contest for contracts or missions.

It is a contest to shape the technological architecture of the region’s emerging space economy.

From a JAFAJ perspective, strategic autonomy increasingly means not simply having multiple partners, but retaining meaningful technological choices among them.

 

 

JAFAJ ASSESSMENT

China’s space diplomacy in MENA should not be understood simply as a competition to sell satellites or secure individual space contracts.

It is better understood as a long-term effort to establish technological, institutional, and infrastructure relationships that can generate diplomatic influence over time.²⁵

The evidence indicates that China has developed important space relationships with strategically significant countries such as Egypt, the UAE, and Iran while simultaneously expanding cooperation with other MENA states.²⁶

The United States retains major advantages in advanced technology, commercial space capabilities, scientific institutions, launch capabilities, and security relationships.

China, however, does not need to replace the United States to gain strategic value.

Beijing can gain influence simply by becoming one of the region’s indispensable technological partners.

That is the critical point.

A MENA government does not have to choose China over the United States for China to gain influence. If Chinese technology becomes embedded in satellites, navigation systems, ground infrastructure, training programs, research institutions, data systems, or lunar projects, Beijing can establish a durable position even while the same governments continue cooperating with Washington.²⁷

The strategic competition is therefore less about securing exclusive allegiance than about establishing durable technological embeddedness.

JAFAJ will monitor five indicators of whether Chinese space cooperation is becoming strategically embedded across MENA:

1. TECHNOLOGICAL EMBEDDEDNESS — Whether MENA governments increase their integration of Chinese navigation, satellite, ground, communications, or data systems into domestic space infrastructure.
2. LUNAR PARTICIPATION — Whether MENA participation in the ILRS, Chang’e missions, and related Chinese lunar initiatives expands in the number of participating countries, missions, payloads, or institutional partnerships.⁴³
3. U.S. ENGAGEMENT — Whether Washington expands practical space cooperation—including technology, research, commercial services, workforce development, and lunar cooperation—rather than relying primarily on diplomatic frameworks.⁴⁴
4. DUAL PARTICIPATION — Whether MENA governments increasingly participate in both U.S.-led and China-led space initiatives, indicating that regional states are maintaining multiple technological relationships rather than moving toward exclusive alignment.
5. INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY — Whether MENA states move from purchasing space technology toward developing domestic capabilities in satellite manufacturing, data services, software, infrastructure, research, and related space industries.

These indicators provide a way to distinguish temporary cooperation from deeper technological integration.

The strategic question for the next decade is therefore not simply:

Who gets to the Moon first?

It is:

Who helps build the technological infrastructure of the countries that will operate there?

That may ultimately prove to be the more consequential competition.

 

 

FOOTNOTES

1. R. Lincoln Hines, Lawrence Rubin, and Dayana Alagirova, “Choosing Orbits: China’s Space Diplomacy in the Middle East,” *Texas National Security Review* 9, no. 3 (Summer 2026): 28–47, https://doi.org/10.1353/tns.00039.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. China National Space Administration, “International Lunar Research Station,” April 25, 2024.
12. China National Space Administration, “China to Launch Chang’e-8 Lunar Mission around 2029, Collaborating with Int’l Partners,” April 24, 2025.
13. China National Space Administration, “International Lunar Research Station.”; China National Space Administration, “China to Launch Chang’e-8 Lunar Mission around 2029, Collaborating with Int’l Partners.”
14. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, “Artemis Accords,” updated November 20, 2025.
15. Ibid.
16. China National Space Administration, “International Lunar Research Station.”
17. Hines et al., “Choosing Orbits.”
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Hines et al., “Choosing Orbits.”; National Aeronautics and Space Administration, “Artemis Accords.”
25. Hines et al., “Choosing Orbits.”
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.

 

REFERENCES

• China National Space Administration. “China to Launch Chang’e-8 Lunar Mission around 2029, Collaborating with Int’l Partners.” April 24, 2025.
•  “International Lunar Research Station.” April 25, 2024.
• Hines, R. Lincoln, Lawrence Rubin, and Dayana Alagirova. “Choosing Orbits: China’s Space Diplomacy in the Middle East.” *Texas National Security Review* 9, no. 3 (Summer 2026): 28–47. https://doi.org/10.1353/tns.00039.
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “Artemis Accords.” Updated November 20, 2025.