Why the Mecca pact poses questions for China

September began with a leaders' summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a China-dominated regional grouping, and will soon see a summit of another China-dominated international gathering, the BRICS. In this context, it is worth examining the creation last month of a new regional bloc, the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, comprising Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and the implications for Chinese foreign and security policy. To start with, is China likely to join this new grouping? While it has shown enthusiasm since its economic reforms began nearly five decades ago in joining international organisations and regional groupings or creating its own as it grew in power, it is unlikely China will join the latest grouping for multiple reasons. Its four global initiatives launched since 2021 are the framework under which China will now join or create new organisations. In other words, China seeks to be in charge and this is not likely to be the case if China did join the Mecca pact. The more important question might be of what potential problems the pact creates for China. Türkiye has had problems with China, given the latter's treatment of the Uyghurs — a Turkic ethnic group in Xinjiang. In recent years, however, Chinese political and economic pressure have forced Ankara to push the issue to the sidelines. The new collective might encourage Türkiye to try and leverage the Uyghur issue once again to China's discomfort, if not detriment. Saudi Arabia has less of a dependency on China, but pressure from the US has pushed it to balance its ties with China. What the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, seeks, however, is to balance against everyone, including China, from a position of strength. Finally, Pakistan's greater agency through the grouping potentially reduces China's leverage in both Islamabad and Rawalpindi. In a world where both Washington, DC and Beijing are asking countries to pick a side, the next big question for China is whether the collective will lean to the US side. The Chinese are not unaware that individually, all three countries in the pact have stronger ties or a preference for stronger ties with the US than with China, no matter how many problems they have with the former. Security and economic linkages that have developed since the end of World War II and continued developing in the post-Cold War era are not about to collapse so quickly even if China's presence in the wider region has grown in the last couple of decades. If, as the Turkish Defence Ministry has stated, the main objective of the Mecca pact is to institutionalise military and defence ties among the parties, then this institutionalisation is likely to be carried out along lines that the US has created for NATO and its other defence relationships in the region. That is the easily available template. Indeed, the collective defence clause of the pact is similar to NATO's own under Article 5. This might slow down China's ability to expand its military ties through weapons sales, joint exercises or other forms of integration with these countries. The Mecca pact then is a diplomatic challenge for China that its preferred bilateral approach to these countries based on multi-sectoral cooperation — economic, technological, people-to-people and military — cannot quite overcome. This is because China's efforts have been underpinned by subtle or overt anti-US framing but possibly did not anticipate a third, different kind of geopolitical combination in the region. China did not anticipate that Türkiye's neo-Ottoman ambitions and Saudi nationalism could overcome history to find common ground. This is a narrative out of China's control. When China brokered the Iran-Saudi deal in 2023, it was done as a way of supporting the Iranians and Saudis against the US but also on the belief that the Sunni-Shia contradiction would prevent meaningful alignment against China even as alignment against the US-Israeli axis stayed a possibility. China's greatest advantages are its economic and scientific capacity, but the primary concern that the Mecca pact seeks to address is military capacity. Saudi economic capacity combined with Turkish military and technological capacity and Pakistan's military human resources (and nuclear weapons) could partially substitute for both Chinese military and economic capacities. Meanwhile, if Pakistan decides to get ambitious and over-extends itself in West Asian affairs, that might also considerably reduce its utility for China against India. Nevertheless, the region's history and the individual ambitions of the Mecca pact members suggest that China might not need to worry too much about the pact as an effective entity. The region has seen other defence arrangements come and go. Also, Sunni Islam does not appear to be the primary motivating factor for the members of the Mecca pact as much as security concerns related to Iran and a US unwilling to take on board their interests. This is, at least temporarily, a source of relief for China but it also offers opportunities for China to push its anti-US agenda. Even as it keeps an eye on the pact, Beijing will work harder to ensure that its bilateral ties with each member are strong enough for the group to think carefully about ganging up against Beijing. Unlike China, meanwhile, India is handicapped by an adversarial relationship with Pakistan, which will have implications, given the military nature of the grouping. Having to concentrate its limited diplomatic capacities on undermining Pakistan and on fixing broken ties with China and Bangladesh — potentially another member — New Delhi might not be as ready to take on the Mecca pact as China is.