The recent US-Iran conflict has focused more attention than ever on the Arab Gulf’s long-anticipated pivot to China. An April headline in the Hong Kong based Asia Times summed up what is now an increasingly common view: “Gulf poised to move closer to China after the war.” This is understandable. China is the number one trading partner of the six GCC states, including their top oil and gas customer. Economic ties go far beyond energy. As a recent World Economic Forum paper put it, this is a “full-stack economic relationship spanning capital, technology, manufacturing, logistics, clean energy and industrial development”. This also has an important strategic dimension as it has led to a deep interdependence that allows Beijing to challenge US primacy in the Gulf region. When it comes to the GCC, China may be the biggest pebble on the Asian beach but it is not the only one. Other north-east, south and south-east Asian states have been active across the Gulf for many years. These include Japan, South Korea, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Taiwan. Relations between the GCC states and these and other Asian actors are less known than those with China, but in many ways they are built on more common interests and shared realities. China is America’s main strategic competitor and a first rank military and economic player with Great Power interests all over the world. These other Asian actors, like their GCC counterparts, are small states and middle powers primarily focused on consolidating security in their home region using soft power. Many are enthusiastic members of ASEAN, and all value multilateralism and international institutions as frameworks for stability and order. For example, they are all much more preoccupied with maintaining order at sea through international law than China (and the US). These relationships often include a significant energy component. Japan, South Korea and India are the GCC’s most important oil and gas customers after China. Pakistan, Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore also rely heavily on GCC energy imports. As in the Chinese case, these actors are increasingly important players in several strategic sectors beyond energy. This matters greatly since the closure of Hormuz led many Asian states, at least temporarily, to look to energy suppliers outside the GCC. Japan is accelerating joint R&D in AI supply chains, space tech, and robotics. Singapore is more involved than ever in the digital technology and fintech sectors. Taiwan has a growing, albeit discreet, footprint in smart healthcare, EV production, and sustainable technology. South Korea has been involved in ship building, nuclear power and mega-infrastructure projects in the Gulf for decades. Now it is becoming a notable player in AI, clean energy and desalination. India is established in regional IT, banking, logistics and digital services. Asian and GCC actors share the same developmental state model as China. This enables them to use state-owned or state-linked enterprises to carry out high-cost, long-term projects that only offer medium-to-long term benefits. But partnering with Asian countries over China has an added political bonus: it avoids tensions with the US over co-operation with China in sensitive areas like tech. Much more than China, these Asian actors also share with GCC states a belief in the power of nurturing interdependence with countries across the globe not only to increase trade and influence but to promote global norms in the interests of regional security in a contested geopolitical environment. There is also a more explicit security component to these relations. Alongside China, these Asian actors first deployed naval vessels to the Gulf of Aden to counter Somali piracy in 2008-09. Since then, they have increased their cooperation with the GCC states on a range of maritime security threats. In 2020, Japan, which has a naval base in Djibouti, deployed a destroyer and a surveillance plane to the region. The following year, South Korea deployed its anti-piracy unit to the Strait of Hormuz after Iran seized one of its oil tankers. Japan and South Korea are also among eight Asian members of the 47-strong US-led Combined Maritime Force (CMF), the world’s largest multinational maritime coalition. The other Asian members are Malaysia, The Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Pakistan and India. They work alongside all the GCC states except the UAE, which withdrew in 2023, to police the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, the Bab-al-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. This mandate, in waterways of vital importance to GCC and Asian countries, will be even more important going forward. On the bilateral level, India has the most developed maritime security partnership with the GCC. It holds regular naval exercises, and has upgraded naval interoperability and strategic port access across the Gulf. Beyond naval co-operation, South Korea has a special forces contingent based in the UAE that provides counter-terror and emergency response training. In February 2026, on the eve of the war, Saudi Arabia signed a defence agreement with Malaysia for military training. In mid-June, Qatar and Indonesia signed a similar agreement for military training and army and navy collaborations. These Asian states are still very much secondary security players in the Gulf compared to US Central Command (CENTCOM). But it would be a mistake to underestimate the mutual benifts of enhanced security cooperation for both the GCC and their Asian partners in the future. Like the GCC states, many of these Asian actors have long relied, and will continue to rely, on the US for security. But in today’s uncertain geopolitical environment, they have a common interest in working together to diversify their security partnerships. From the GCC perspective, these Asian actors are obvious partners in any future homegrown defensive security frameworks. Their pro-US credentials would also raise few red flags in Washington if they played a bigger role in the GCC build-up of sovereign defence-industrial capabilities. As relations develop, these opportunities may appeal to Asian states not only as revenue generators but as ways to protect their rising non-energy interests in the Gulf and to partially check Chinese strategic ambitions in the wider region. The writer is Professor of International Politics and Director of the Small States and Energy Studies Programmes at Georgetown Univeristy in Qatar @RoryDavidMiller
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