When Sultan Haitham bin Tarik left Beijing on November 2, he had ended a longstanding anomaly in China’s relations with the Gulf. China had been Oman’s largest trading partner and principal market for crude oil for years, and the two countries had maintained a strategic partnership since 2018, yet no Omani head of state had visited the People’s Republic in the 48 years since diplomatic relations were established.
Haitham’s two-day state visit included meetings with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang and the signing of a currency-swap agreement, 14 memoranda of understanding, and a cooperation protocol, while a separate investment forum produced another 23 commercial and investment documents. Most of the concrete outcomes sought to expand cooperation beyond oil into finance, artificial intelligence, space, renewable energy, and industrial supply chains, but some of the visit’s most consequential language concerned neither trade nor investment. The joint statement called for a ceasefire in the Iran war, renewed negotiations between Tehran and Washington, the restoration of safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, and continued China-Oman communication on the strait.
That language did not give China a direct role in managing Hormuz or change the formal designation of its relationship with Oman, but it brought Beijing into leader-level wartime consultation with a state involved in navigation and traffic management through a waterway carrying a major share of China’s imported oil. Haitham’s visit therefore narrowed the gap between political engagement and a relationship long organized around energy and commerce, even as the predominantly economic agreements show how much of its existing character remains intact.
A Relationship Built Below the Summit
Haitham arrived in Beijing at the head of a relationship already worth tens of billions of dollars a year, with Chinese figures putting bilateral trade at $32.87 billion in 2025, comprising $27.26 billion in Chinese imports from Oman and $5.61 billion in exports in the other direction. That imbalance came principally from crude oil, of which China imported 35.35 million metric tons from Oman during the year, making the sultanate its seventh-largest supplier and China the leading market for Omani oil.
Oil did not account for the entire relationship, as the strategic partnership established in 2018 was managed through foreign-ministry consultations and a joint economic committee, including a fourteenth round of consultations that convened in Beijing in April 2025. Chinese interest also extended to the plans for a Chinese industrial park in Duqm, most of which remained unrealized, State Grid’s acquisition of a 49% stake in the Oman Electricity Transmission Company, and occasional military contacts, including joint naval training near Muscat in 2023.
The missing element was direct engagement between the countries’ rulers. Commercial ties and a modest military relationship had not produced sustained leader-level diplomacy, and even the strategic partnership was announced through an exchange of congratulatory messages between Xi and the late Sultan Qaboos rather than at a summit. By the time Haitham traveled to Beijing, a head of state from every other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member had already visited China, making the trip less the beginning of a relationship than the correction of an imbalance in one that was already economically substantial and institutionally developed.
Hormuz Moves Onto the Bilateral Agenda
The Iran war matters to the visit not because the public record proves that it caused the trip or determined its timing, but because it changed the stakes of Oman’s geography, with the Musandam Peninsula lying on the southern side of the Strait of Hormuz, opposite Iran, while most of the country’s coastline faces the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea outside the strait, where Duqm and Salalah provide direct access to Indian Ocean shipping. Oman consequently offers a combination that no other GCC state can reproduce, with a demonstrated operational role inside the chokepoint and commercial infrastructure beyond it.
Iran and Oman jointly proposed the traffic separation scheme adopted by the International Maritime Organization in 1968, and during the IMO’s June 2026 evacuation operation, Iran was assigned responsibility for the northern route and Oman for the southern route. Muscat has paired that maritime role with diplomatic access, maintaining working relations with Tehran while preserving close security ties with the United States and channels across the GCC.
Omani and Iranian officials began talks in July over freedom of navigation through Hormuz, and by August those discussions had produced a proposed framework for a temporary navigational corridor, a joint mine-clearing project, and further negotiations over traffic management. Rather than merely calling for de-escalation, Oman was helping negotiate the practical arrangements needed to reopen one of the world’s most important energy routes, a process that continued on November 5 when the Omani and Iranian foreign ministers discussed joint technical mechanisms to restore navigation.
China has an enormous interest in those efforts but little direct authority over them because Gulf producers supply a large share of its imported oil, much of which normally passes through Hormuz. In the first half of 2025, 89% of the crude oil and condensate moving through the strait went to Asian markets, with China among the four leading destinations for crude oil and condensate and the largest destination for liquefied natural gas. Engaging Oman therefore gives Beijing a line to a government involved in navigation and traffic management through Hormuz that can also communicate with Iran, the United States, and other Gulf states.
China-Oman consultation over the war and safe navigation was already underway before Haitham arrived, with Chinese Middle East envoy Zhai Jun visiting Muscat in June to discuss both issues. On November 2, China announced that Zhai would return to Oman, Iran, and Saudi Arabia for further shuttle diplomacy, and later reported that he met Iranian officials in Tehran on November 8. The inclusion of Iran and Saudi Arabia on the same itinerary suggests that Beijing viewed consultation with Oman as part of a wider regional diplomatic effort rather than an exclusively bilateral exercise.
Political Elevation, Economic Foundation
The visit elevated political engagement, but the extent of that change had clear limits. China and Oman retained the strategic partnership established in 2018 rather than upgrading it to a comprehensive strategic partnership, although Xi called for moving the relationship “to a higher level,” and the joint statement assigned summit diplomacy an “irreplaceable” role in guiding bilateral ties.
The concrete outcomes remained predominantly economic, with the central banks signing a five-year currency swap worth up to 30 billion yuan, or about $4.5 billion, while the 14 memoranda covered artificial intelligence, space, digital finance, industrial supply chains, and green development. The separate investment forum produced documents ranging from a 10-year, $418.7 million mining-services contract for the already-financed Mazoon copper and gold project to proposed funds involving the Silk Road Fund and China Merchants Bank that remained preliminary term sheets rather than completed investments.
The political language went further than the practical outcomes. China praised Oman’s “important and distinctive role” in regional affairs, and both governments expressed readiness to expand military, security, and judicial cooperation, but they announced no defense agreement, basing arrangement, arms transaction, or permanent mechanism for coordinating over Hormuz. Haitham also invited Xi to visit Oman, yet the joint statement recorded neither an acceptance nor a timetable. Oman therefore continues to rely on the United States as a principal external security partner, including through American access to Duqm and Salalah, while China develops its role through diplomatic access, investment, and technical cooperation.
Oman’s Place in China’s Gulf Diplomacy
Oman’s belated entry into leader-level diplomacy with Beijing provides a useful point of comparison with China’s better-known Gulf relationships. Saudi Arabia offers greater commercial and political scale, the UAE functions as a larger trade and logistics hub, and Qatar occupies a more prominent place in China’s liquefied natural gas trade, while Oman derives its value from a less easily replicated combination of oil, ports outside Hormuz, a demonstrated role in navigation through the strait, and diplomatic access to Iran.
China’s partnership labels offer only limited help in ranking those relationships, as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain hold comprehensive strategic partnerships with Beijing while Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait remain strategic partners. Economic size, energy dependence, and diplomatic utility do not translate mechanically into a particular designation, just as a designation does not ensure that every dimension of a relationship is equally developed.
The summit also placed bilateral and GCC-level economic diplomacy side by side, with the joint statement calling for faster completion of the long-delayed China-GCC free trade agreement while Haitham proposed a separate preferential trade and investment agreement between Oman and China. Beijing did not publicly accept that proposal, but its appearance shows Muscat exploring a bilateral route even as it supports the bloc-wide process.
Haitham’s visit filled the most visible gap in China-Oman relations without overturning their economic and energy-centered character. A visit to Oman by Xi, repeated engagement between the two leaders, deployment of capital from the proposed investment funds, or a regular mechanism for consultation over Hormuz would indicate that the relationship had entered a different phase. Until then, the visit is best understood as political elevation within an established partnership rather than a transformation of it.
The views and information contained in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Asia Cable.