میدل-ایست-آیUS intelligence assessed Chinese military was hosted at base in UAE
US intelligence assessed Chinese military was hosted at base in UAE
UAE denied US access to part of base in Abu Dhabi where American spies believed the People’s Liberation Army was hosted, sources say
President of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan (C-L), and Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa view military equipment during UAE and Bahrain joint military exercise titled 'Rabdan-Shuwaiman', in Manama, on 22 November 2025 (Handout / UAE Presidential Court/AFP)
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US defence and intelligence officials have assessed that Chinese military personnel were deployed on a UAE military base after the US was denied access to the area, two former senior US officials told Middle East Eye.
Speaking on condition of anonymity to share the intelligence, the two former officials said the US assessed that members of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were being hosted by the UAE at Zayed Military City in Abu Dhabi, MEE can reveal.
The assessment was made around 2020, the officials said.
One of the people familiar with the matter said the US began to collect more information on the base after US officials asked for permission to enter a section of Zayed Military City and were denied access.
Neither former senior US official would share how the US assessed members of the PLA were at the base or what their role was.
Both former US officials said they were concerned the PLA could have used Zayed Military City to gather intelligence on US forces in the UAE.
The UAE’s Al Dhafra Air Base hosts the US’s 380th Air Expeditionary Force and sits just 20 miles south of Abu Dhabi.
One of the officials said the US saw parallels between the UAE’s arrangement with the PLA at Zayed Military City and US intelligence on some East Asian countries' decision to host the PLA in exchange for financial support.
Chinese activity at Zayed Military City in Abu Dhabi has not been previously reported.
China-UAE military ties
It is not clear whether members of the PLA are still at the facility. The US has lobbied the UAE against moving closer militarily to China, although the issue continues to plague ties with Washington.
In 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported that China was building a military port near Abu Dhabi. A few weeks after that article appeared, a separate WSJ article claimed the UAE halted the project at the US’s request.
But classified documents released on the Discord messaging platform said that a year later, work at the facility had restarted, according to a report by The Washington Post.
The UAE and China are open about their military ties. In 2024, they held a joint air force drill in China’s Xinjiang region.
MEE reached out to the Emirati and Chinese embassies in Washington for comment on this story. Neither responded by the time of publication.
The US Department of War did not respond.
F-35s and AI chips
The UAE is a close security and economic partner of the US. But in recent years, ties have been strained over its relations with Beijing. Like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the UAE has courted US President Donald Trump and his family, particularly Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Last week, the Trump administration approved the export of tens of thousands of advanced AI chips to the UAE’s state-owned AI company, G42, and its Saudi rival, Humain.
The Trump administration’s decision was welcomed by tech firms like Nvidia, which need export markets to boost sales. But it upset some members of the US defence and security establishment, wary of Chinese influence in the Gulf.
“The Saudis might be a little better, but I don’t think the UAE is going to be loyal to the US,” one of the former senior officials told MEE.
In October, The Financial Times reported how in 2022 the US obtained intelligence that the UAE’s G42 company gave China’s Huawei technology that the PLA used to extend the range of air-to-air missiles.
Business deals aside, the US relies on the UAE to project power in the region. The US has used Emirati bases on the Red Sea to attack the Islamic State militant group in Somalia, MEE has recently revealed.
Perhaps more importantly in Washington, the UAE has emerged as Israel’s closest Arab partner.
In 2020, the UAE signed the Trump-brokered Abraham Accords. Earlier this year, the UAE lobbied the Trump administration to prevent Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank, but ties between the UAE and Israel have generally withstood Israel’s war on Gaza.
The UAE was promised F-35 warplanes in exchange for normalising ties with Israel, but that deal stalled under the Biden administration amid US concerns over its ties to China.
In an August 2022 Senate hearing, Biden’s top Middle East diplomat, Barbara Leaf, said China was “getting away with murder” in the Middle East.
Asked why the sale of F-35s to the UAE had stalled, she noted “a list of things” regarding its ties to China that derailed the deal.
More recently, Trump said he would move forward with the sale of F-35s to Saudi Arabia.
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