Kuwait Dances With China, U.S. Still Biggest Security Guarantor

China’s relationship with Kuwait is the best amongst all the gulf states, and emblematic of problems confronting American policy and global energy markets.

AFP via Getty Images

In the closing days of August, Princess Dr. Sheikha Al-Anoud Ibrahim Al-Duaij Al-Sabah stepped before an assembled crowd in Kuwait City to inaugurate the Kuwait-China Friendship Club. The Sheikha is the Club’s Honorary President. She is also a member of the Al-Sabah dynasty, which has ruled Kuwait since 1756. Last but not least, she has been involved with China since at least 2012.

The Friendship Club, like the once ubiquitous and now controversial Confucius Institutes that dotted the West, is more than simply a cultural exchange. It represents and enables the growing reach and influence of China in Kuwait, a country of only 1.3 million citizens, which has maintained very close relations with the United States since U.S. and allied forces spent blood and treasure to liberate the country and restore the exiled Al-Sabah regime to power in the limited 1991 Gulf War. That conflict was triggered when Iraq under Baathist dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 and threatened Saudi Arabia.

For some, the Friendship Club may be seen as a natural extension of globalization, a harmless gesture of goodwill. For others, particularly those in the Western foreign policy communities, it is the latest sign that Kuwait may be shifting its geopolitical weight eastward. These concerns are not simply ideological. They are rooted in questions of accountability, military alignment, and energy policy, all of which have seen Kuwait and China grow conspicuously close in recent months.

Kuwaiti and Chinese Military Entanglements

During the global war on terror, Kuwait cooperated with the U.S. and served as the launchpad for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This may have masked an uncomfortable truth from the direct gaze of Washington D.C. policymakers for a time. Both before and after the Gulf War, Kuwait was playing the field, not wed to American interests. Prior to the War, Kuwait was the only Gulf state to pursue closer ties with the Soviet Union. Shortly afterward, Kuwait began getting closer to China. The pattern is unmistakable.

Today, neither the theoretical incompatibility of China’s Communist Party-ruled state with Kuwait’s absolute monarchy, nor Beijing’s mistreatment of Uyghur Muslims is what is dictating Kuwait’s foreign policy. In 1995, only four years after the Gulf War, Kuwait signed a military cooperation agreement with Beijing. In August 2025, Kuwait and China pledged closer military cooperation ahead of the anticipated launch of a jointly built ammunition plant. That factory, about which little is known, is now nearing completion. Additionally, joint military training programs between Kuwait and China have been ongoing since 2019.

Meanwhile, the United States maintains over 13,000 troops in Kuwait, with eight military bases, including strategic Camp Arifjan. Kuwait City engaging in deeper strategic cooperation with China doesn’t just have “strategic implications” for Washington – it may rather blatantly contradict U.S. interests. Ammunition production and joint military training are not soft-power items. By engaging in this slow but deliberate dance with Beijing, tiny Kuwait is placing giant China squarely inside the Gulf’s security ecosystem while still relying on the U.S. to do the heavy lifting should its security be threatened.

Energy Entanglements

Energy has been a central focus of Kuwait’s foreign policy for decades. It was Kuwaiti energy falling into Saddam Hussein’s hands, added to the threat his occupation posed to neighboring oil-rich Saudi Arabia, that sparked the Gulf War. Now, with China already the largest purchaser of Arab Gulf energy, Beijing has bought itself a lot of leverage. This isn’t limited to hydrocarbons. Earlier this year, Kuwait signed a wide-ranging agreement with Chinese companies to significantly expand its solar energy capacity. On the surface, this is welcome news: clean energy, diversification, modernization. But scratch deeper, and the complications emerge.

Kuwait’s expanding energy partnership with China mirrors Beijing’s broader strategy across the developing world — tying up infrastructure and energy deals that create dependencies rather than mutual prosperity. Kuwait, once a model Gulf technocracy, appears increasingly drawn into this web and seems to be picking up Chinese habits.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the controversy surrounding the Al Zour refinery, one of the largest in the Middle East. Built with significant contributions from foreign contractors, including South Korea’s Hyundai, the U.S.’ Fluor, and Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas, the project has become a diplomatic headache. In what may be charitably termed as accounting with Chinese characteristics, Kuwaiti entities have reportedly failed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars owed to these firms. Many suspect that the failure to pay companies, most of whom are from the West, is the result of pressure from Beijing.

This has not gone unnoticed in Washington. In a rare move, the U.S. Congress last month inserted pointed language into its National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Bill, criticizing Kuwait by name for its failure to resolve these debts. The legislation directs the Secretary of State to “utilize the various tools of diplomatic engagement” to resolve the dispute. This is the diplomatic equivalent of a low growl signaling rising frustration.

Kuwait City Playing Both Sides of the Street

Some in Kuwait’s leadership may believe they can hedge between East and West, cultivating Chinese capital while relying on American protection. This is an illusion. Saudi Arabia tried and was forced to choose between Beijing and Washington on several critical engagements at a moment not of its own choosing. Iran went all in on supporting China, only to find it a fair-weather friend last June. Kuwait is set to learn the same lesson.

Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Kuwait’s octogenarian Emir, should not confuse diversification with duplication. Kuwait can, and should, expand its energy and trade partnerships. However, developing alliances with one great power while actively distancing from the other and refusing to pay the bills will not only draw ire but also be interpreted as a purposeful pivot away from engagement with America and towards its peer competitor, China.

That pivot will ultimately come with a price. Congressional language, initially merely symbolic, can become policy. Defense cooperation, once taken for granted, can be recalibrated. The United States, as recent history has shown, does not take kindly to partners who ignore its core security concerns. If NATO isn’t sacrosanct, Kuwait certainly isn’t.

The Kuwait-China Friendship Club and the slate of unpaid bills revolving around the Al Zour refinery may yet prove just a bump in the road. However, both should serve as a wake-up call. In matters of statecraft, optics matter. In choices of alliance, clarity counts. Kuwait remains one of the most strategically located countries in the Gulf. But that reputation rests on its ability to act as a trusted, reliable partner. If that reputation is compromised, if U.S. interests appear threatened, global energy markets and Washington policymakers who remember how many lives were taken or tragically altered and how much money was spent on liberating Kuwait from Saddam Hussein’s deadly embrace may respond with a heavy hand.