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Sino–Arab relations (simplified Chinese:中国与阿拉伯世界之间的关系;traditional Chinese:中國與阿拉伯世界之間的關係;pinyin:Zhōngguó yǔ ālābó shìjiè zhī jiān de guānxì,Arabic:العلاقات بين الصين والعالم العربي,romanized: alealaqat bayn alsiyn walealam alearabii), have extended historically back to theRashidun Caliphate, with important trade routes, and good diplomatic relations. Since the establishment of thePeople's Republic of China (PRC), modern Sino-Arab relations have gotten significantly closer, with theChina–Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF) helping the People's Republic of China and theArab nations to establish a new partnership in an era of the growingglobalization. As a result, close economic, political and military relations between the two sides have been maintained.[1] From 2018, the relations became significantly warmer, with the PRC and the Arab countries exchanging state visits, establishing cooperation mechanism and providing support to each other.[2][3]
Since 1990, no Arab country has official diplomatic relations with theRepublic of China (ROC), although it is diplomatically represented in some nations viaTaipei Economic and Cultural Offices.
During theTang dynasty, when relations with Arabs were first established, the Chinese called the Arabs 大食/大石 (Dàshí < Old Chi. *da[y]zyik).[4][5][6][7] TheCaliphate was called "Da Shi Guo" 大食國.[8] The word is thought to be a transcription of PersianTāzik orTāzī, derived from anisba of the Arab tribeṬayyiʾ.[9] The modern term for Arab is 阿拉伯 (Ālābó or Alabo).
The Arab IslamicCaliphUthman Ibn Affan (r. 644–656) sent an embassy to the Tang court atChang'an.[10]
The ArabUmayyad commander,Qutayba ibn Muslim is reported to have advanced as far asKashgar, where he captured the city and fought the Chinese forces, took spoils and captives, and pushed deep into Chinese territory. the Tang emperor sent letter requesting to negotiate with Qutayba. Qutayba sent a Muslim delegation to negotiate with the emperor, resulting in an agreement between the Arabs and the Chinese under which the Muslims would withdraw from the city in exchange for tribute and valuable gifts from the Tang court.[11][12] however, this report is dismissed by some modern historians.[13][14][15] HistorianMahmoud Mohammed Khalaf replied to the dismissal claims and presented it as a rebuttal to the view of the historians who dismissed the claim of the battle, specifically to the Orientalist Gibb:
Thus it becomes clear that the Muslim conquests had in fact reached the city of Kashgar – one of the cities of China at that time. This stands as the strongest rebuttal to the claim of the orientalist Gibb, who alleged that the Muslim armies never reached the city, while the Hungarian orientalistÁrmin Vámbéry affirmed that Muslim forces had reached East Turkestan and attacked the rulers of the Uyghurs. He further stated that the city ofCanton was the easternmost frontier of Islam.[16]
The ArabUmayyad Caliphate in 715 AD deposedIkhshid, the king theFergana Valley, and installed a new king Alutar on the throne. The deposed king fled toKucha (seat ofAnxi Protectorate), and sought Chinese intervention. The Chinese sent 10,000 troops under Zhang Xiaosong toFergana. He defeated Alutar and the Arab occupation force atNamangan and reinstalled Ikhshid on the throne.[17]
Chinese General Tang Jiahui led the Chinese to defeat the following Arab-Tibetan attack in theBattle of Aksu (717).[18] The attack on Aksu was joined byTurgesh KhanSuluk.[19][20] BothUch Turfan andAksu were attacked by the Turgesh, Arab, and Tibetan force on 15 August 717. Qarluqs serving under Chinese command, under Arsila Xian, a Western Turkic Qaghan serving under the Chinese Assistant Grand Protector General Tang Jiahui defeated the attack. Al-Yashkuri, the Arab commander and his army fled to Tashkent after they were defeated.[21][22]
In 751, When the Chinese interfered in the affairs of the Emirate of Chach (ModernTashkent), They killed the emperor for his disloyalty to them. Later, his son requested help from the Arabs, which were the Abbasids at that time, The Abbasids clashed with the Chinese atTalas. The Abbasid army underZiyad ibn Salih [ar] managed to decisively defeat the Tang army underGao Xianzhi. As Arabic sources claim that 45,000–50,000 Chinese were killed in the battle and 20,000–25,000 were captured. The defeat marked the end of Tang westward expansion and resulted in Muslim control ofTransoxiana. The Abbasids successfully captured theSilk Road.[23][24]
A Chinese captured at Talas,Du Huan, was brought toBaghdad and toured throughout the caliphate. He observed that inMerv,Khurasan, Arabs and Persians lived in mixed concentrations.[25] He gave an account of the Arab people in the Tongdian in 801 which he wrote when he returned to China.
Arabia [Dashi] was originally part of Persia. The men have high noses, are dark, and bearded. The women are very fair [white] and when they go out they veil the face. Five times daily they worship God [Tianshen]. They wear silver girdles, with silver knives suspended. They do not drink wine, nor use music. Their place of worship will accommodate several hundreds of people. Every seventh day the king (Caliph) sits on high, and speaks to those below saying, ' Those who are killed by the enemy will be born in heaven above; those who slay the enemy will receive happiness.' Therefore they are usually valiant fighters. Their land is sandy and stony, not fit for cultivation; so they hunt and eat flesh.
This (Kufa) is the place of their capital. Its men and women are attractive in appearance and large in stature. Their clothing is handsome, and their carriage and demeanor leisurely and lovely. When women go outdoors, they always cover their faces, regardless of whether they are noble or base. They pray to heaven five times a day. They eat meat [ even] when practicing abstention, [for] they believe the taking of life to be meritorious.
The followers of the confession of the “Dashi” (the Arabs) have a means to denote the degrees of family relations, but it is degenerated and they don’t bother about it. They don’t eat the meat of pigs, dogs, donkeys and horses, they don’t respect neither the king of the country, neither their parents, they don’t believe in supernatural powers, they perform sacrifice to heaven and to no one else. According their customs every seventh day is a holiday, on which no trade and no cash transactions are done, whereas when they drink alcohol, they are behaving in a ridiculous and undisciplined way during the whole day.
An Arab envoy presented horses and a girdle to the Chinese in 713, but he refused to pay homage to the Emperor, said, he said "In my country we only bow to God never to a Prince". The first thing the court was going to do was to murder the envoy, however, a minister intervened, saying "a difference in the court etiquette of foreign countries ought not to be considered a crime." A second Arab envoy performed the required rituals and paid homage to the Emperor in 726 A.D. He was gifted with a "purple robe and a girdle".[32]
There was a controversy between the Arab ambassadors andUyghur Khaganate Ambassadors over who should go first into the Chinese court, they were then guided by the Master of Ceremonies into two different entrances. Three Da shi ambassadors arrived at the Tang court in 798 A.D. A war which was raging between the Arabs and Tibetans from 785 to 804 benefited the Chinese.[33]
Products were traded by sea routes between China and Arabs.[34]
According to Professor Samy S. SwaydFatimid missionaries made theirDawah in China during the reign ofal-'Aziz bi-Allah.[35]
One legend among Muslims in China said that China during the Tang dynasty exchanged 3,000 Chinese soldiers sending them to the Arabs and the Arabs in turn sent 3,000 Arab Muslim soldiers to China.[36][37][38][39][40][41]
When CaliphAl-Saffah died in 754, Chinese sources record that his successor, the Abbasid caliphAl-Mansur, sent his diplomatic delegations regularly to China. Al-Mansur's delegations were known in China asKhayi Tashi (Black Clothes).[42]
CaliphAbu Ja'far al-Mansur established friendly relations with the Chinese. Historical sources mention a series of successive Arab embassies after the Battle of Talas. in 756, Abu Ja'far al-Mansur provided the ChineseEmperor Xuanzong of Tang with a contingent of 3,000 to 4,000 soldiers to suppress thean Lushan Rebellion that erupted against him. After suppressing this rebellion, the Emperor allowed them to settle in China's most important cities as a reward for the assistance they provided to the Emperor. Over time, these Arabs married Chinese women, and a new generation emerged, from whom came the Muslims of China.[43][44]
As a result of these good relations between both sides - the Abbasids and the Chinese - Arab merchants settled in China. They had a judge (qadi) who issued rulings according to Islamic law, led prayers, and performed Islamic rituals. The Chinese Empire granted Arabs special facilities for selling their goods, and the Emperor himself would order the purchase of some of these goods for his personal account. Thus, Arabs were able to penetrate deep into the country and practice trade with complete freedom. For a long time, Arabs found complete welcome there, to the extent that the shops of major Chinese merchants would supply Arab traders with all the products and fine manufactures they needed from their lands to be shipped in Arab caravans upon their return to the lands of Islam.[43]
The Abbasids continued to send embassies to China and 13 diplomatic gifts are recorded between 752 and 798.[45]
A massacre of foreign Arab and Persian Muslim merchants by Tian Shengong happened during the An Lushan rebellion in theYangzhou massacre (760),[46][47] since Tian Shengong was defecting to the Tang dynasty and wanted them to publicly recognized and acknowledge him, and the Tang court portrayed the war as between rebel hu barbarians of the Yan against Han Chinese of the Tang dynasty, Tian Shengong slaughtered foreigners as a blood sacrifice to prove he was loyal to the Han Chinese Tang dynasty state and for them to recognize him as a regional warlord without him giving up territory, and he killed other foreign Hu barbarian ethnicities as well whose ethnic groups were not specified, not only Arabs and Persians since it was directed against all foreigners.[48][49] The Tang dynasty recovered its power decades after the An Lushan rebellion and was still able to launch offensive conquests and campaigns like itsdestruction of the Uyghur Khaganate in Mongolia in 840-847.[50] It was theHuang Chao rebellion in 874–884 by the native Han rebel Huang Chao that permanently destroyed the power of the Tang dynasty since Huang Chao not only devastated the north but marched into southern China which An Lushan failed to do due to the Battle of Suiyang. Huang Chao's army in southern China committed theGuangzhou massacre against foreign Arab and Persian Muslim, Zoroastrian, Jewish and Christian merchants in 878–879 at the seaport and trading entrepot ofGuangzhou,[51] and captured both Tang dynasty capitals, Luoyang and Chang'an. A medieval Chinese source claimed that Huang Chao killed 8 million people.[52] Even though Huang Chao was eventually defeated, the Tang Emperors lost all their power to regional jiedushi and Huang Chao's former lieutenantZhu Wen who had defected to the Tang court turned the Tang emperors into his puppets and completed the destruction of Chang'an by dismantling Chang'an and transporting the materials east to Luoyang when he forced the court to move the capital. Zhu Wen deposed the last Tang Emperor in 907 and foundedLater Liang (Five Dynasties), plunging China into theFive Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period as regional jiedushi warlords declared their own dynasties and kingdoms.[citation needed]
Arab CaliphHarun al-Rashid established an alliance with China.[53] The Abbasid caliphAbu Ja'far Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Mansur (Abu Giafar) was the one who sent the mercenaries. Several embassies from the Abbaside Caliphs to the Chinese Court are recorded in the T'ang Annals, the most important of these being those of (A-bo-lo-ba)Abul Abbas, the founder of the new dynasty, that of (A-p'u-ch'a-fo)Abu Giafar, the builder of Bagdad, of whom more must be said immediately; and that of (A-lun)Harun al Raschid, best known, perhaps, in modern days through the popular work, Arabian Nights. The Abbasides or " Black Flags," as they were commonly called, are known in Chinese history as the Heh-i Ta-shih, " The Black-robed Arabs."[54][55][56]
In Islamic times Muslims from Arabia traded with China.[57] For instance, China imported frankincense from southern Arabia viaSrivijaya.[58]
The Chinese Muslim AdmiralZheng He made several expeditions to the Middle East.[59]: 67 In modern diplomatic discourses with the Islamic countries, China cites this history as an example of historic ties and peaceful and prosperous exchanges.[59]: 73
TheRepublic of China under theKuomintang had established relations withEgypt andSaudi Arabia in the 1930s. The Chinese government sponsored students likeWang Jingzhai andMuhammad Ma Jian to go theAl-Azhar University to study. Muslim pilgrims also made theHajj toMecca from China.[60]
Chinese Muslims were sent to Saudi Arabia and Egypt to denounce the Japanese during theSecond Sino-Japanese War.[60]
The Fuad Muslim Library in China was named after KingFuad I of Egypt by theChinese Muslim Ma Songting.[61][62]
In 1939Isa Yusuf Alptekin and Ma Fuliang (馬賦良) were sent by theKuomintang to Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt,Turkey, andSyria to gain support for China in the Second Sino-Japanese War.[63] Others included Wang Zengshan, Xue Wenbo, and Lin Zhongming.[64] TheHui Muslim ImamDa Pusheng [zh] (达浦生) also toured the Middle East to confront Japanese propagandists in Arab countries and denounce their invasion to the Islamic world. He directly confronted Japanese agents in Arab countries and challenged them in public over their propaganda. He went to British India, Hejaz in Saudi Arabia and Cairo in Egypt.[65]
Ambassador Wang Shi-ming was a Chinese Muslim, and the Republic of China ambassador toKuwait.[66]
Before 1955, the People's Republic of China (PRC) did not have a stance on theArab-Israeli conflict.[67]: xxxiv-xxxv This was largely because the PRC had fewdiplomatic contacts with Israel and the independent Arab states recognized the ROC at the time and not the PRC.[67]: xxxiv–xxxv
The PRC first made diplomatic contacts with the Arab countries at theBandung Conference in 1955.[67]: xxiv In 1956, the PRC established its first formal diplomatic relations with Arab countries, beginning with Egypt, Syria, and Yemen, and also established trade agreements and cultural agreements with those three countries.[67]: xxiv
The relations between China and theArab League as an organization officially started in 1956.[68]
In the early 1960s, China sought to mobilize support of the Arab countries for a second Bandung Conference, proposed to be held in Algiers.[67]: xxvi The effort failed as a result of events including the1965 Algerian coup d'état, theouster of Sukarno in Indonesia, the1966 Ghanaian coup d'état, and Egypt growing closer to the Soviet Union.[67]: xxvi
In the early phase of theCultural Revolution, China curtailed its diplomatic activities, including withdrawing its ambassadors from all of the Arab countries other than Egypt.[67]: xxvi China continued to maintain its diplomatic ties to non-state actors such as the Palestinian organizations and other groups which China also viewed as liberation groups.[67]: xxvi From April to July 1969, China's embassies in the Arab countries were reactivated.[67]: xxvii
China's relations with the Arab states, as well as Iran, deepened and as a result in 1971 China became more aloof from Arab insurgents it had previously supported, such as thefedayeen and thePopular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG).[67]: 94
In 1993, the Arab League opened its first office in China, when then-Secretary-GeneralAsmat Abdel-Meguid went to an official visit to Beijing.[68]
In 1996, theChinese Communist Party (CCP)General SecretaryJiang Zemin gave an interview to Abdel-Meguid during his visit to Egypt, and became the first Chinese leader to officially visit the Arab League.[68]
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The China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF) was established in 2004 during a visit byCCP General SecretaryHu Jintao to the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Egypt.[69]: 56 CASCF was the first cooperation forum between the Arab League and any other country or region.[70]: 59 CASCF membership consists of China and the Arab League, which officially represents its twenty-two member states as a relatively unified body.[70]: 57 CASCF therefore serves as the primary multilateral coordination mechanism between China and the Arab States.[70]: 56 This coordination by the Arab League allows Arab states to negotiate actively for collective projects involving multiple states, such as railway projects, nuclear power projects, and Dead Sea initiatives.[70]: 58 The core political norms that China advocates within CASCF are itsFive Principles of Peaceful Coexistence: mutual respect for territory and sovereignty, mutual nonaggression, mutual noninterference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence.[70]: 59 These principles are a conservative interpretation of theWestphalian norms of state sovereignty.[70]: 59 China's advocacy for this strict interpretation of Westphalian sovereignty has intensified since the2011 NATO intervention in Libya, creating some tensions within CASCF over the positions China (as a member of theUnited Nations Security Council) takes on Syria, although generally the Arab League states continue to support China's advocacy of the Five Principles.[70]: 60
In July 2019, UN ambassadors of 37 countries, including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates, signed a joint letter to theUnited Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) defending China's treatment ofUyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in theXinjiang.[71][72][73] Qatar subsequently retracted its support after signing.[74] Algeria, Kuwait, and Oman were among the 16 countries that defended China's policies in Xinjiang in 2019 but did not do so in 2020.[75]
Adam Hoffman and Roie Yellinek of theMiddle East Institute wrote in May 2020 that the outbreak of theCOVID-19 pandemic, which spread from China to the Arab states, has set a complex dynamic in relations between the sides, created an opportunity for solidarity and assistance, and at the same time exacerbating present challenges.[76]
In 2020, 15 of the 22 Arab League member states had backed the 2020Hong Kong national security law at theUnited Nations, alongside 38 other countries.[77][74]
As of 2020, there were 14Confucius Institutes in the Arab world. Confucius Institutes are one of the major ways China investssoft power in the Arab countries and in the world. It can be said that the Institutes, as an instrument of Chinese soft power, have effectively penetrated the Arab world and are welcomed without significant criticism.[78]
A 2025 academic review notes that China's policy toward Arab countries emphasizes strategic ambiguity and transactional diplomacy. Rather than aligning with any single bloc, China fosters parallel relationships with both monarchies and republics, utilizing economic instruments such as infrastructure investment and summit diplomacy. This calibrated engagement, according to the review, enhances China's regional presence without direct political entanglement.[79]
China proposes "peace through development" in the Middle East, an approach thatCCP general secretaryXi Jinping articulated during a visit to Arab League headquarters.[59]: 56 This approach proposes that sustainable peace in the Middle East requires comprehensive development initiatives.[59]: 56 Chinese narratives of peace through development in the Middle East cite the fact that attempts by outside actors to create prosperity through the development of democratic institutions in Iraq and Afghanistan failed.[59]: 56
Within the first ten years of theBelt and Road Initiative, China signed amemorandum of understanding with every Arab country.[59]: 70 China describes this as a signal of the Arab countries' recognition of the BRI as "an important international public product and a platform for international cooperation."[59]: 70
Algeria–China relations
Bahrain–China relations
China–Comoros relations
China–Djibouti relations
China–Egypt relations
China–Iraq relations
China–Jordan relations
China–Kuwait relations
China–Lebanon relations
China–Libya relations
China–Mauritania relations
China–Morocco relations
China–Oman relations
China–Palestine relations
China–Qatar relations
China–Saudi Arabia relations
China–Somalia relations
China–Sudan relations
China–Syria relations
China–Tunisia relations
China–United Arab Emirates relations
China–Yemen relationsAlgeria–Taiwan relationsBahrain–Taiwan relationsComoros–Taiwan relationsDjibouti–Taiwan relationsEgypt–Taiwan relationsIraq–Taiwan relationsJordan–Taiwan relationsKuwait–Taiwan relationsLebanon–Taiwan relationsLibya–Taiwan relationsMauritania–Taiwan relationsMorocco–Taiwan relationsOman–Taiwan relationsPalestine–Taiwan relationsQatar–Taiwan relationsSaudi Arabia–Taiwan relationsSomalia–Taiwan relationsSudan–Taiwan relationsSyria–Taiwan relationsTaiwan–Tunisia relationsTaiwan–United Arab Emirates relationsTaiwan–Yemen relations
This article incorporates text fromOn the knowledge possessed by the ancient Chinese of the Arabs and Arabian colonies: and other western countries, mentioned in Chinese books, by E. Bretschneider, a publication from 1871, now in thepublic domain in the United States..svg)
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The fifth caliph, al-'Aziz bi-Allah (r.975-996). . . In his time, the Fatimi "Call" or "Mission" (Da'wa) reached as far east as India and northern China.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)In7= 789 the Khalifa Harun al Raschid dispatched a mission to China, and there had been one or two less important missions in the seventh and eighth centuries; but from 879, the date of the Canton massacre, for more than three centuries to follow, we hear nothing of the Mahometans and their religion. They were not mentioned in the edict of 845, which proved such a blow to Buddhism and Nestorian Christianityl perhaps because they were less obtrusive in the propagation of their religion, a policy aided by the absence of anything like a commercial spirit in religious matters.
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During the reign of Abbassid Caliph Abu Giafar in the middle of the eighth century, many Arab soldiers evidently settled near the garrisons on the Chinese frontier.(Original from the University of Michigan, Library of Catalonia )
China (A. al-Sin):. . .After the coming of Islam, the existing trade was continued by the peoples of the South Arabian coast and the Persian Gulf, but the merchants remained on the coast.
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