Both the U.S. and China are maintaining a presence in the Middle East after the eruption of violence in the region earlier this month. But "China has a long way to go before it can match the reach of the U.S. military," one expert has told Newsweek, as Washington funnels more resources into the volatile region.
The U.S. has heavily bolstered its military presence in the region since October 7, when Palestinian militant group Hamas launched coordinated attacks on Israel. Israel's military has since carried out a campaign of airstrikes on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, to the southwest of Israel, in anticipation of a looming ground offensive. Hamas has in turn fired rockets and missiles across Israel, and is believed to still be holding Israeli hostages in Gaza.
The U.S. has moved two carrier strike groups into the eastern Mediterranean, triggered the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery and sent "additional Patriot battalions to locations throughout the region to increase force protection for U.S. forces," according to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. U.S. troops have received prepare-to-deploy orders, and a squadron of F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft arrived in the region on Tuesday.
The U.S. has relocated its USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier strike group to the region, with a second—the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower—ordered to the Mediterranean for "long-scheduled" deployment, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby has said.
"Altogether this gives the U.S. a significant amount of firepower in the region from which to draw on if needed," independent military analyst Patrick Fox previously told Newsweek.
The carrier strike groups allow the U.S. to "launch operations independently, anywhere in the world and immediately upon arrival," a senior Pentagon official said during a media briefing on Tuesday. "When we send them somewhere, we are deliberately sending an incredibly strong signal to our adversaries," as well as Washington's allies, they added.
But the U.S. is not alone in the Middle East. Beijing's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has also been moving around in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman as the Middle East braces for more bloodshed between Israel and Hamas.
There are currently six Chinese naval vessels around the Middle East, made up of the 44th and 45th naval escort task forces, said Bryden Spurling, senior research leader for defense and security, at the European branch of the RAND think tank.
Each task force has a destroyer, a frigate and a replenishment vessel, he told Newsweek, and they are "conducting a handover, after which the 44th will return to China."
China has tipped significant resources into developing its Navy, swelling its size in a few short years—and it shows few signs of slowing down. The U.S. is acutely aware of China's status as "numerically the largest navy in the world" with 370 ships and submarines, as per the Pentagon's annual report on the Chinese military, released last week.
"Though they've never been tested in conflict, these ships have significant capability and reflect the rapid growth in the sophistication of the Chinese Navy," Spurling said. "Six highly capable vessels in the theater at this time is a deployment that a lot of countries in the world could not manage," he added.
Yet Beijing "has a long way to go before it can match the reach of the U.S. military," Spurling said. The two U.S. carrier strike groups in the eastern Mediterranean have more ships and are more powerful, particularly with the airpower accompanying them, Spurling told Newsweek.
"The network of bases and partnerships the U.S. has around the world, and its familiarity with operating globally, is still leagues ahead of what China can do," Spurling said. "And its arguable whether China will be able to match it in future, even if they would like to do so."
The vessels aren't in the Middle East in response to the recent outbreak of violence between Israel and Hamas, but part of a "long-running" Chinese Navy rotational deployment in the Gulf of Aden, Spurling said. They hope in part to deter piracy along key supply routes, he said, but they also show Beijing is learning how to deploy its forces at a distance.
"The fleet of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy set sail for [an] escort mission and is paying friendly visits to relevant countries," Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for Beijing's Embassy in Washington, told the Russian state-run Sputnik news outlet. "The relevant parties should respect the facts and stop groundless hyping."
The 44th Chinese naval escort taskforce finished a "goodwill visit" to Kuwait on Sunday, China's military said, before carrying out joint exercises with a Kuwaiti naval patrol vessel. The 44th Chinese naval escort taskforce had previously visited Oman—leaving on October 14—and carried out another set of joint naval drills.
The 45th fleet, soon to take over from the 44th, includes the Urumqi guided-missile destroyer and the Linyi missile frigate, as well as the Dongpinghu replenishment vessel, according to the Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine ... Read more
