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The festering rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that is now reshaping regional and global politics has roots stretching back to a 1950s border conflict, a power struggle rooted in historical distrust and modern ambitions for regional dominance. Late veteran journalist David Holden first chronicled the 1950s Buraimi dispute in his 1966 work *Farewell Arabia*, recounting how Saudi Arabia attempted to bribe Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan—then the “Lord of Buraimi” and later the founding father of the UAE—from the ruling al-Nahyan family to hand over control of the oil-rich Buraimi oasis. When Zayed rejected the bribe, Saudi Arabia launched an invasion that ultimately failed, setting a template for decades of tension between the two Gulf monarchies.

Today, that historical rivalry has reignited between Zayed’s son, current UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed (known widely as MBZ), and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). The two nations are now at odds across nearly every major sphere of influence in the Middle East and beyond, from the battlefields of North Africa to global energy markets, and analysts widely agree that the outcome of their feud will define the future of the entire region—especially as American engagement in the Gulf faces growing uncertainty amid the Israel-Iran conflict. The spillover of their rift will even reach household budgets in Europe, Asia, and North America, through shifts in global energy pricing.

The most high-profile public split came this month, when Abu Dhabi ended its 60-year membership in the Saudi-led Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), vowing to increase daily oil production by millions of barrels. Energy analysts note that the surface-level disagreement centers on long-term strategy: the UAE prioritizes maximizing immediate profits by ramping up output, while Saudi Arabia prefers managing global supply to sustain higher long-term oil prices.

But this policy rift is merely a symptom of a far deeper power struggle. For decades, OPEC has operated as a bloc of major oil-exporting Muslim-majority nations led by Saudi Arabia, which holds more than twice the UAE’s proven oil reserves, is home to Islam’s two holiest sites (Mecca and Medina), and has a population of 36 million—more than triple the UAE’s total population of 10 million, just one million of whom are native Emirati citizens. “Saudi Arabia wants to project its power through OPEC and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Because of its size and resources, it sees itself as the natural leader of the Gulf,” explained Rob Geist Pinfold, an international security expert at King’s College London. “The UAE is small, but it has undergone a remarkable transformation to become a larger-than-life global brand. The UAE feels deferring to the Saudis prevents it from exercising power on the world stage.”

Historical context reinforces this distrust: the coastal trading communities that formed the modern UAE have long been squeezed between Persian influence to the east and the expansionist Saudi royal family, originating from the central Arabian region of Najd, to the west. Analysts argue that MBZ’s contemporary foreign policy is a modern iteration of this ancient rivalry, supercharged by decades of oil wealth and cutting-edge digital and military technology. “The Emiratis have always viewed the Saudis as a predatory neighbour who want to make them their vassals,” noted Patrick Theros, a former U.S. Ambassador to Qatar who first arrived in the Middle East when the Buraimi dispute was still a raw, unresolved issue. “They have also, traditionally, been wary of the Persians asserting their own zone of influence in the Gulf. MBZ finally decided that it’s possible for a small Gulf country to stand up to the Saudis and the Persians.”

Today, the UAE has emerged as one of the most vocal Gulf supporters of U.S. and Israeli military action against Iran, and has received Israeli air defense systems to fend off Iranian drone and missile attacks. To offset its small size and geographic limitations, the UAE has also built alliances with local factions across strategically important states west of the Arabian Peninsula—a strategy that has repeatedly clashed with Saudi interests.

The two Gulf powers back opposing factions in Sudan’s ongoing civil war: the UAE supports the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary, while Saudi Arabia backs the established Sudanese government. Middle East Eye first revealed that Saudi Arabia even lobbied Washington to impose sanctions on the UAE for its RSF support, exposing how deeply bilateral ties have been strained in that theater. In Yemen, just before the 2025 Israel-Iran war escalated, Saudi Arabia launched strikes against UAE-aligned secessionist groups in eastern Yemen, even partnering with Oman to block an Emirati power grab in the region.

For the UAE, control or allied influence in these regions delivers critical strategic depth that its small domestic territory cannot provide. A RSF victory in Sudan would give the UAE an allied partner on the Red Sea coast directly opposite Saudi Arabia, while the UAE-aligned Southern Transitional Council seeks to split from Yemen to control oil-rich territory bordering the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The UAE has also recognized the breakaway Republic of Somaliland, a move backed by Israel, further expanding its influence along key global shipping lanes. Amid ongoing Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, the primary chokepoint for Gulf oil exports, control of alternative Red Sea shipping routes has become a critical geopolitical priority for both nations.

Beyond territorial competition, the two nations hold fundamentally different approaches to post-Arab Spring regional order. After the 2011 uprisings that collapsed multiple long-standing Arab regimes, the UAE has backed secessionist and anti-Islamist factions across conflict zones including Yemen, Libya, and Sudan, while Saudi Arabia has prioritized backing unified national governments and preserving existing state institutions. “Our Saudi approach is based on supporting the nation state: preserving its unity, strengthening its institutions and sovereignty, and contributing to its reconstruction rather than its fragmentation,” explained Hesham Alghannam, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Conversely, the other side’s regional engagement has often been characterised by an obsessive, narrow strategic emphasis on combating Islamists or political rivals. This has weakened state institutions, empowered militias, and created parallel forces that challenge legitimate authority. We clearly support combating extremism and terrorism, but through national institutions operating within the framework of the state and the rule of law. This should not be done through arming non-state actors or entrenching internal divisions.”

It is important to note that the current rift was not inevitable: for a decade after the 2011 Arab Spring, the two monarchies shared common interests that temporarily aligned their policies. The 2012 electoral victory of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt spooked both royal houses, which viewed Islamist political movements as an existential threat to their rule. Both also saw the rise of the Houthi movement in Yemen as an Iranian-aligned threat, and jointly led the three-and-a-half-year blockade of Qatar, accusing Doha of supporting groups hostile to Gulf monarchies. Experts note this cooperation was partially rooted in personal ties: when MBS rose to power in 2015, MBZ mentored the younger crown prince, and was instrumental in convincing MBS to launch the Qatar boycott. “You can absolutely see in those early days when MBS was coming to prominence, the close working relationship. It was basically MBZ that convinced MBS to boycott Qatar,” said Neil Quilliam, a Gulf expert and associate fellow at Chatham House.

But analysts emphasize this period of cooperation was an aberration, not the norm. Long before the Arab Spring, the two nations fell out over plans for deeper Gulf integration. In 2009, the UAE withdrew from the GCC monetary union project, which aimed to create a single shared currency for Gulf states, after Abu Dhabi was angered by the decision to site the union’s headquarters in Riyadh. “It would be like France and Germany having spat over the EU and one withdrawing,” noted Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Middle East fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute. “Before the Arab Spring, it looked like the break was going to be between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, not Qatar. The Arab Spring temporarily brought them together, but if you take a long-term view, pre-2010 and post-2020, they were at loggerheads.”

The two nations have also diverged sharply on reconciliation with Qatar after the 2021 al-Ula agreement that formally ended the blockade. While Saudi Arabia moved quickly to repair ties with Doha, the UAE has maintained a cool, suspicious relationship with Qatar years after the official end of hostilities.

The starkest example of their modern policy divergence comes in their approaches to Israel and the Palestinian conflict. In 2020, the UAE broke ranks with the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, a plan crafted by Saudi Arabia and endorsed by the entire Arab League that requires the creation of an independent Palestinian state on pre-1967 borders before any Arab state normalizes relations with Israel. While Saudi Arabia had been in talks with the Biden administration to normalize relations with Israel in 2023, Israel’s full-scale military campaign in Gaza ended any prospect of a deal. The UN and multiple independent human rights bodies have classified Israel’s military operation in Gaza as genocide, which has killed more than 72,600 Palestinians to date, and public opinion in Saudi Arabia is overwhelmingly opposed to normalization; a 2023 poll by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy found 96 percent of Saudis support cutting all ties with Israel over the war. MBS has publicly echoed this widespread public sentiment. “Politics in Saudi Arabia is heading back towards the more consensual model that it was based on,” Quilliam explained. “There is a diversity of views on Israel in the UAE, but MBZ feels he doesn’t need to worry about that. MBS came to see some of MBZ’s adventurous positions as a liability and has developed a better understanding of the Arab street.”

The ongoing 2025 war between Israel and Iran has only widened this rift, pushing the two nations to build competing blocs within the U.S. alliance network. While both nations remain deeply dependent on Washington for security and economic cooperation, the UAE has deepened its strategic partnership with Israel, while Saudi Arabia has built a broader coalition with Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan. “Neither the UAE or Saudi Arabia can give up the U.S. But those new alliances are going to grow,” Theros said. As the rivalry plays out across energy markets, battlefields, and diplomatic circles, its outcome will not only reshape the Middle East but send ripple effects across the global economy and international order.

In debates over U.S. military engagement in Iran, a core argument from critics has gained widespread traction: that the ongoing conflict erodes American deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, undermines the confidence of U.S. allies and partners, and drastically increases the risk of a violent confrontation between the United States and China over Taiwan.

There is no question that this premise rests on tangible, observable facts. The U.S. military, particularly its naval branch, is already smaller than strategic analysts argue it needs to meet global defense demands, and a large share of Washington’s available combat power is currently tied down in the Middle East amid the Iran campaign. Currently, no deployable U.S. aircraft carrier is positioned in the Western Pacific, and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit — the only forward-deployed Marine amphibious task force in the region — has been reallocated to support operations related to Iran.

Equally concerning for defense planners is the pace at which the Iran conflict is depleting U.S. weapons stockpiles, especially long-range precision strike missiles and air defense ordnance. While the full severity of the stockpile shortfall remains unconfirmed, it is widely assessed that the U.S. currently does not maintain the reserve of munitions that defense leaders would deem sufficient for a major conflict with China. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo recently alluded to this very gap in public remarks, lending official weight to these concerns.

Against this backdrop, a critical question has emerged: does this moment create a tempting window for Chinese leader Xi Jinping to launch aggressive action against Taiwan, or against other U.S. partners in the region including the Philippines and Japan?

On paper, the opportunity seems clear. China has carried out the largest and fastest military expansion since World War II, building a modern, capable force focused heavily on its primary near-term objective: seizing control of Taiwan. For more than 50 years, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has planned and trained for this mission. Today, it has the naval and air power to establish a full blockade around the island, and its combined amphibious and airborne lift capacity is sufficient to move a large invasion force across the Taiwan Strait. Beijing’s massive rocket force can strike key targets across Taiwan, and years of subversion and cognitive warfare have cultivated pro-unification fifth column elements within Taiwan’s population to support an invasion.

For Xi, the math could seem compelling — particularly if he believes any conflict over Taiwan could be contained to the Taiwan Strait and concluded quickly, within a matter of weeks. But a successful seizure of Taiwan is far from a guaranteed outcome, even with U.S. forces tied down in the Middle East, and Xi faces a host of major strategic risks that could give him serious pause.

First, the U.S. retains significant latent military capability in the Indo-Pacific even amid the Iran deployment, and can quickly reinforce regional positions from other global command areas. Beyond force numbers, the U.S. has demonstrated its operational proficiency in recent conflicts in Venezuela and Iran, as well as in ongoing efforts to intercept Houthi missiles and drones in the Red Sea. Notably, Chinese-made air defense systems and missiles supplied to Iranian and other proxies have performed poorly against U.S. and allied systems, a reality that cannot be lost on Chinese military planners.

Another key factor: the PLA has not fought a major conventional conflict in more than 50 years, leaving it untested in large-scale, high-intensity combat against a modern adversary. If the conflict expands beyond a short, contained operation, China has openly acknowledged that its military is not prepared to protect China’s global interests. The PLA lacks the capability to operate far from Chinese shores or project power more than 1,000 miles beyond the mainland, even as its longer-range missiles can hit targets much farther out.

A prolonged conflict would also bring catastrophic economic consequences for Beijing. China’s international trade would almost certainly come to a complete halt, along with its imports of critical energy and food supplies. Chinese manufacturers would be cut off from access to Western components and technology, and finished Chinese goods would lose access to major global markets. Losing export revenue denominated in hard currency, primarily U.S. dollars, and being cut off from the global dollar-based financial system would create an unprecedented economic crisis. While Beijing could attempt to rely on its own currency, the renminbi is not freely convertible, and it is not widely held or desired by global trading partners — making it nearly impossible to purchase critical imports from Australia, the Middle East, and other suppliers that require hard currency payment.

Domestically, a prolonged, costly conflict could also erode Xi’s domestic standing. For years, Xi has urged Chinese citizens to “eat bitterness” and prepare for hardship, but more than 600 million Chinese people live on $5 or less per day. If thousands of young Chinese soldiers are killed in an invasion that becomes bogged down, public anger could build, even after an initial wave of nationalist sentiment. Xi’s existing political opponents would almost certainly capitalize on public discontent to challenge his rule.

Finally, any unprovoked invasion of Taiwan would accelerate a global shift toward balancing against Chinese aggression, uniting more countries in cooperation with the United States to counter Beijing. This shift is already underway, driven by Xi’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy. Japan, which resisted major defense expansion for decades under successive U.S. administrations, has now significantly bolstered its military capabilities in response to Chinese threats. The Philippines, Indonesia, and even New Zealand have grown increasingly alarmed by Beijing’s expansionism and deepened security cooperation with the U.S. In Washington, the U.S. government and military now openly recognize the severity of the Chinese threat, a marked shift from a decade ago when public warnings about China were effectively banned in policy and military circles.

Even Europe, long hesitant to confront China, has begun to recognize the importance of strengthening defense, spurred by Russian aggression in Ukraine and a more tough-minded U.S. approach under the Trump administration. In the Global South, public backlash against Chinese aggression would grow if the PLA launched deadly attacks on Taiwan, and Chinese investment and influence in the region would collapse. Even Russia would likely only offer symbolic pro-Beijing statements rather than concrete support, happy to let China and the U.S. exhaust one another.

If China attacked U.S. military bases in Guam, the Northern Marianas, Hawaii, or anywhere on U.S. territory, it would kill American citizens — uniting even deeply divided U.S. public opinion against Beijing, and eliminating any chance that pro-China leftist groups in the U.S. could soften Washington’s response. Even the traditional pro-engagement business community on Wall Street, which has long prioritized economic ties with Beijing, would likely rethink its support for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) after an invasion.

Ultimately, only Xi Jinping knows what decision he will make. It remains possible that he will judge the current moment, with U.S. forces occupied in Iran, as too good an opportunity to pass. But any decision to launch an invasion of Taiwan would be one of the largest gambles in modern military history. For all their ambitions, Xi and other senior CCP leaders are not suicidal — a fact underscored by their long pattern of moving personal wealth and family members overseas to safety ahead of any potential crisis. Retired U.S. Marine Colonel Grant Newsham, author of *When China Attacks: A Warning to America*, contributed this analysis.

As former U.S. President Donald Trump prepares for a high-stakes upcoming summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, a pressing humanitarian and geopolitical plea has taken center stage: the family of imprisoned Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai is urgently calling on Trump to leverage the meeting to secure Lai’s release, warning that the 78-year-old’s declining health leaves little time for delayed action.

Lai, once a prominent media tycoon and vocal critic of Beijing’s governance in Hong Kong, founded the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily. The outlet was forced to close during the sweeping crackdown that followed Hong Kong’s 2019 large-scale anti-government protests. Last year, Lai was sentenced to a total of 20 years in prison under the controversial national security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020 — a law that Lai had once hoped a U.S. president would intervene to stop.

In an exclusive interview with the Associated Press, Lai’s 31-year-old son Sebastien Lai, who is based in London, laid out the family’s last-ditch hopes for diplomatic intervention. Sebastien, who has maintained contact with his father through letters during his five years in custody, warned that his father’s pre-existing health conditions — including heart palpitations and diabetes — put his life at grave risk if he remains behind bars. “My father will die in prison if he’s not freed,” Sebastien said, adding that an in-custody death would create a lose-lose outcome for all parties, turning Lai into a martyr and deepening international distrust of Beijing. If released, Sebastien added, his father only desires to live out the rest of his years in quiet seclusion.

Trump has already signaled he plans to raise Lai’s case during the Beijing talks, alongside other core agenda items including trade relations, the ongoing Iran war and cross-strait tensions over Taiwan. Speaking to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump noted he holds “a little bitterness” over Lai’s continued detention. This is not the first time the former president has raised the issue: he first brought up Lai’s case during an October 2024 meeting with Xi, and has twice instructed senior administration officials to raise the demand in bilateral talks with Chinese counterparts, according to Mark Clifford, president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, which advocates for Lai’s release.

Clifford, citing sources briefed on previous diplomatic engagements, said Chinese officials have acknowledged U.S. calls for Lai’s release without aggressive pushback in private discussions, a shift he calls a positive sign that the door for negotiation remains open. The U.S. Treasury Department declined to comment on the diplomatic outreach, while the White House has not responded to questions about how aggressively it will press for Lai’s release during the upcoming summit. More than 100 bipartisan U.S. lawmakers have already signed a public letter urging the Trump administration to prioritize Lai’s release at the Beijing talks.

Publicly, however, Beijing has maintained a firm stance that Lai’s case falls entirely under China’s internal affairs, barring any foreign interference. Chinese foreign ministry officials have labeled Lai the mastermind of the 2019 Hong Kong riots, while the Hong Kong government has rejected claims that his conviction threatens press freedom, emphasizing that Lai received a fair and open public trial. Authorities are also currently moving to seize all of Lai’s assets on national security grounds, a step Sebastien calls a continued retaliatory attack against his father. Lai, a British citizen whom Beijing insists is Chinese, has chosen not to appeal his conviction and sentence.

Analysts and activists are divided over the likelihood of a diplomatic breakthrough, amid shifting patterns in Sino-U.S. prisoner exchanges. While Washington secured the release of U.S. pastor David Lin and other detainees in a 2024 diplomatic swap, rights advocates note Beijing has grown far less willing to release high-profile political detainees under President Xi Jinping than it was under previous leaders. Human rights lawyer Jared Genser, who represented late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died in Chinese custody in 2017 despite international calls for his medical release, said Xi’s administration prioritizes framing its actions as resistance to foreign interference over protecting its international reputation. Unlike under Hu Jintao’s leadership, when China was more open to concessions to maintain smooth economic relations, Genser said, “China knows that most countries will only raise these cases privately, and that self-censorship makes it far harder to secure the release of political prisoners today.”

John Kamm, founder of the Dui Hua Foundation which advocates for political prisoners, noted that China has historically made concessions on detainee cases when it seeks specific diplomatic or economic gains — such as when it agreed to goodwill gestures ahead of hosting the Olympic Games. But Kamm argued that the Trump administration has shown little sustained focus on political prisoners in China, with Trump’s priorities for the summit firmly fixed on trade, investment and the Iran war. Still, other analysts see room for a mutually beneficial deal. Thomas Kellogg, executive director of the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, said releasing Lai could serve both sides: it would allow Beijing to signal it is ready to move past the post-2019 crackdown era in Hong Kong, while delivering a much-needed diplomatic win for the Trump administration after a string of recent political challenges. A deal on Lai would even earn Trump praise from his domestic critics, Kellogg added.

Wilson Chan, co-founder of the Pagoda Institute think tank, offered a more pessimistic outlook, arguing that the chances of a diplomatic solution are slim. Chan noted that Beijing has deliberately chosen to use Lai’s case to send a message to both domestic and international audiences, and continued international pressure on the issue only reinforces Beijing’s view that Lai remains a persistent national security threat. Without sustained, high-profile public pressure, Chan added, Beijing faces no incentive to compromise. For Sebastien Lai and his family, however, there is no alternative to pushing for diplomatic action: with every passing month, the clock ticks closer to what they fear is an inevitable, tragic outcome if intervention does not come soon.