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The Mecca agreement’s implications for China
The Mecca pact among Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey calls for NATO-like collective defence, but a more realistic outcome could be greater mediation roles for each of the parties and gains for China, a close partner of all three. Academic Alessandro Arduino explains.21 Aug 2026
This handout photograph released by the Turkish Presidency press office on 7 August 2026, shows Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, flanked by Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (L) and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, signing a joint defence agreement in Mecca. (Turkish Presidency Press Office/Handout via AFP)
The Middle East has not yet stopped trembling from the latest war, and the conflict with Iran has revived a question that few regional leaders are willing to ask openly: Is the US still willing and, more importantly, able to guarantee the region’s security?
Power abhors a vacuum. Across the Gulf, whether real or merely perceived, the American void appears to be widening dangerously. Iran inspires greater fear than it did before. Syria is struggling to establish a fragile stability; even as former President Bashar al-Assad has been sentenced to death in absentia by a Damascus court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen remain in flames, while across the Red Sea, African states are sinking deeper into civil unrest.
One response to this widening arc of instability emerged from a meeting held in Mecca on 7 August among the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey. A new realignment appears to be taking shape — one driven less by shared ideology than by a common fear of the disorder advancing around them. China is taking note.
The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, signed in the Saudi holy city by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, is intended to establish collective deterrence against any act of aggression. The agreement creates a new security axis among three major Sunni Muslim powers, each traditionally connected to the US, but at the same time in good relations with China.
Echoes of NATO?
While the core of the pact is a commitment reminiscent of NATO’s Article 5 — an attack against one signatory will be regarded as an attack against them all — expectations surrounding the new alliance should be tempered as collective defence formulas may look impressive in official communiques, but their credibility can be measured only when a real crisis erupts. The full text of the agreement has not been released, nor have details emerged about specific military commitments. The pact is unlikely to restrain the escalating confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, just as it would hardly determine the outcome of a future clash between Pakistan and India, or between Turkey and Israel.... as it aligns with China’s vision of an increasingly multipolar international order and is likely to have significant consequences for Beijing’s strategic positioning in the Middle East.
A billboard featuring Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Pakistani PM Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, Army Chief Asim Munir, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Karachi, Pakistan, on 9 August 2026. (Akhtar Soomro/Reuters)
At the same time, all three countries, while maintaining important relations with Washington, have also developed close ties with Beijing. The agreement therefore reaches well beyond regional security as it aligns with China’s vision of an increasingly multipolar international order and is likely to have significant consequences for Beijing’s strategic positioning in the Middle East. The agreement comes as the regional order is deteriorating rapidly. Iranian missiles have reached the Gulf’s oil-exporting states, and major energy routes have been disrupted.
Simultaneously, the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is being watched with growing alarm from the Red Sea. These are two strategic chokepoints, but together they pose a single, far-reaching threat to the global economy. The shock waves are already disrupting the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)’s logistical networks, driving up freight costs and weakening global demand for Chinese goods, while China has in part managed to reduce its dependence on Gulf hydrocarbons, insulating itself from the impact of spiralling energy prices.
... from a security stand point, China is set to benefit from its rising role in military technology transfer to the region.
The agreement’s true significance may therefore lie elsewhere. Rather than establishing a military alliance modelled on NATO, it could strengthen the roles of Saudi Arabia and Turkey as mediators in Pakistan’s regional disputes, particularly its strained relations with Afghanistan, where both countries have already helped facilitate dialogue. The same can be said of Pakistan. The war involving the US, Israel and Iran has elevated Islamabad into the ranks of the region’s principal mediators, alongside Qatar and Oman.
More military technology transfer from China
Also, from a security stand point, China is set to benefit from its rising role in military technology transfer to the region. Nuclear-armed Pakistan has long maintained a privileged relationship with Saudi Arabia and the cooperation includes the supply of weapons, among them the JF-17 fighter jet, jointly developed by Pakistan and China, as well as China’s “Red Flag” HQ-9 air defence system. Together, these capabilities provide Saudi Arabia with what is effectively a rapidly deployable military shield “for hire”, protecting the kingdom’s most strategically sensitive areas. At the same time, Riyadh continues to balance its procurement of advanced American military equipment with the acquisition of Chinese drones and missile systems.China’s close relationship with all three countries, and at the same time with Iran, is enhancing its diplomatic leverage, allowing Beijing to protect the economic foundations of the BRI...
This triangular relationship among China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia also illustrates the reach of Beijing’s economic diplomacy. Pakistan’s military support for the kingdom rests on strong Saudi-Pakistani economic ties, in 2018, Riyadh extended Islamabad a US$6 billion financial package, including credit and assistance with hydrocarbon supplies — vital support for an economy under chronic pressure and already heavily dependent on approximately US$63 billion in investments linked to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
China’s leverage with the three countries and Iran
The signatories nevertheless insist that the agreement is strictly defensive and it is not intended to create a military axis or religious bloc and above all, they maintain that it is unrelated to any nuclear ambitions. Iran’s protests came swiftly. Israel, by contrast, has remained silent, but it is a consequential silence, particularly because Israel’s expanding military presence in Lebanon ranks among the principal concerns shared by the three signatories.China’s close relationship with all three countries, and at the same time with Iran, is enhancing its diplomatic leverage, allowing Beijing to protect the economic foundations of the BRI, which depend above all on regional stability. For now, the Mecca accord reflects the efforts of three powers to secure greater strategic autonomy through deterrence and diplomatic coordination, at a moment when the old regional order has fractured further and was shaken once again when American bombs began falling on Tehran.
