Mecca Joint Defense Agreement: More Opportunities for Chinese Troublemaking

Commentary

For some time, China has sought to shape a post-American security architecture in the Middle East, and its objectives could be advanced by the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement—or Mecca Agreement—recently signed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan.

In September 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump brokered the Abraham Accords, which have offered an opportunity to promote greater stability in the Middle East by encouraging regional states to turn their enmity toward Israel into recognition and cooperation.

The Chinese communist regime has undercut Middle East stability, notably peace with Israel, by becoming the main funder of the Iranian regime (via buying most of its oil), thus enabling Iran’s proxy war against Israel via its funding and arming of the Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthi terrorist groups.

Chinese purchases of Iranian petroleum enabled Iran to fund the horrific Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, in addition to funding Iran’s massive missile/drone arsenal and its nuclear weapons program.

But China has also pursued military-technical relationships with Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and Egypt, selling the Saudis medium-range missiles starting in 1988 and building up Pakistan as a nuclear missile state and potential future source of “nuclear deterrence” or even weapons.

By generating the twin pressures of a near-nuclear Iran and its advanced weapons offerings, China has offered an alternative to the U.S.-led strategic architecture, one that explicitly does not rest on reconciliation with Israel. In fact, by late 2023, Beijing was seeking to isolate Tel Aviv.

Then, in early 2023, China sought to test its investments by brokering an initial diplomatic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which did not require Iran to end its nuclear threat but very likely involved China offering future nuclear deterrence to Saudi Arabia via Pakistan.

But this Chinese agenda was interrupted by Iran’s growing nuclear weapons capability, giving Trump and Israel little choice but to attack Iranian military forces in June 2025, culminating in the U.S. Operation Midnight Hammer strikes against Iranian nuclear weapons production facilities.

However, China did not cease its military technology support for Iran, especially its provision of missile and drone technology, and very likely settled on encouraging the more limited Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement signed between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on Sept. 17, 2025.

Pakistani officials quickly explained that Saudi Arabia would be defended by Pakistan’s nuclear capability—but did not add that this was made possible by China’s decades of nuclear weapon and missile technology transfers.

Raising the prospect of a new Middle East security order, on Sept. 24, 2025, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the United Nations, “Iran welcomes the defensive pact between the two brotherly countries of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Islamic Republic of Pakistan, as a beginning for a comprehensive regional security system, with the cooperation of the Muslim states of West Asia, in the political security and defense domain.”

However, Iran’s joining such a “comprehensive regional security system” was set back by Iran’s renewed push to build nuclear weapons, forcing Trump to join forces again with Israel to begin the Feb. 28, 2026, war to destroy Iran’s nuclear and missile forces.

Iran’s response to the U.S. and Israeli onslaught was to launch more than 6,700 ballistic missiles and drones against Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Oman, while on May 9, 2026, the U.S. State Department sanctioned three Chinese companies for providing satellite intelligence that has helped guide Iran’s missiles.

But apparently for Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan, their enmity toward and suspicion of Israel and the United States—despite their enormous sacrifice in weapons, treasure, and lives—and their unwillingness to diminish their military relationships with China, the main funder of Iran’s war, have helped propel their continued interest in a post-American security architecture.

Adding a new layer to the Saudi–Pakistan defense agreement, in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on Aug. 7, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed their Mecca Joint Defense Agreement.

Their joint statement that day reads: “The agreement is intended to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression, and stipulates that any armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all. It further provides for the enhancement of all aspects of defense cooperation among the three states.”

Pakistan did not issue any immediate public statement saying that its nuclear weapons would defend Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but this could be implied by the joint statement’s phrase “strengthen collective deterrence” and the fact that both Pakistan and Turkey are developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

Pakistan’s ICBM program was revealed publicly in December 2024 by the United States’ former Biden administration, and given that Chinese technology has assisted most of Pakistan’s ballistic and cruise missile programs, it would be logical to presume that Chinese technology is assisting Pakistan’s ICBM program, or that Chinese technology could also be transferred via North Korean ICBM systems.

Turkey’s solid-fuel missile program was boosted by a 1998 deal with the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. to coproduce the B-611 short-range ballistic missile.

However, it is not clear that Turkey’s road-mobile, liquid-fueled, 3,700-mile-range Yildirim (Lightning) ICBM program, revealed at an early May 2026 Turkish arms exhibit, also benefits from Chinese technology.

But China’s launch of four electro-optical satellites and one hyperspectral surveillance satellite for Pakistan in 2025 and 2026 should be able to provide global targeting for Pakistan’s and possibly Turkey’s ICBMs.

As such, it will be critical to monitor Pakistan’s and Turkey’s ICBM buildup to determine whether their goal is basic “deterrence” or to gather a nuclear missile force that poses a new threat to Israel and the United States.

One aspect of the Mecca Agreement that is particularly important to its members is the development of deeper defense-industrial cooperation, through which Pakistan and Turkey initially hope to secure greater Saudi investment in their growing weapons development and production sectors.

Their goal is to gain greater independence from American military systems, but that may lead to greater dependence on Chinese military technology.

Pakistan already relies extensively on Chinese missile, drone, armor, artillery, combat ship, submarine, and combat aircraft technology. It coproduces the Chinese Chengdu Aircraft Corp.-designed JF-17 4.5-generation fighter, and it is expected to purchase the Shenyang Aircraft Corp. J-35 fifth-generation combat aircraft. 

Pakistan will also coproduce the Chinese Type 039B conventional submarine. But a May 19 report in a Malaysian web publication, Defense Security Asia, alleges that Pakistan was seeking nuclear ballistic missile submarines from China in exchange for allowing Chinese military use of the Pakistani air and naval base at Gwadar—built with generous Chinese funding.

It is curious that as the United States was seeking to wrest control of the Strait of Hormuz from Iran, Pakistan may have been considering allowing Chinese air and naval forces into Gwadar, right next to the U.S. blockade zone, thereby enhancing the “deterrent” potential of the Mecca Agreement.

On Aug. 13, Reuters reported that a Turkish Ministry of Defense official had noted that the Mecca Agreement would pursue “joint military exercises involving land, naval, and air forces, as well as air defense and unmanned systems, in addition to deeper defense industry cooperation.”

Sending People’s Liberation Army forces to participate in Mecca Agreement-sponsored exercises would be a logical outcome of Pakistan’s full membership in the China-dominated Shanghai Cooperation Organization—in which Saudi Arabia and Turkey also serve as “dialogue partners”—given the organization’s focus on large-scale multilateral military exercises.

Pro-Beijing South China Morning Post noted in an Aug. 10 article that the Mecca Agreement partners were “taking steps to reduce their reliance on US-dominated security architecture and build their own collective defense framework.”

And then, an Aug. 14 article in the Chinese news outlet Guancha asked of the Mecca Agreement partners, “Will they invite China to join?”

This article notes that it is not China’s practice to formally join military alliances. However, when it comes to the Mecca Agreement, China is already perhaps its most important enabler. Particularly through Pakistan, Beijing could serve as a major source for Chinese weapons technology and military “deterrent” power.

Beijing’s medium-term agenda for the Iranian terror regime, should it survive, may be to encourage the Mecca Agreement partners to accept Iran as a member, creating an alliance posing a far greater challenge to Israel and the United States.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.