Commentary In January of this year, the foreign ministers of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, along with Nayef Falah M. Al-Hajraf, the secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, paid a visit to China. They made the trip for one reason and one reason only: to discuss furthering trade and security agreements with Beijing. As Axios reported at the time, the “flurry of visits by Gulf officials is part of China’s push for deeper involvement in the Middle East. For Beijing, the Gulf in particular is key to its energy supply and increasingly to its geopolitical influence.” China has spotted an opening, with “Washington focusing on the Indo-Pacific, and with U.S.-Saudi relations under strain,” the report said. Moreover, “there is a perception among Gulf leaders that the U.S. is slowly but surely pulling out of the region.” Some U.S. officials, according to Axios, are extremely “concerned about the degree to which China seems to …