Lessons from the ascent of the United Arab Emirates
how to thrive in the multipolar age. The country is home to just over 0.1% of the world’s people and produces only 0.5% of its GDP, but it contains nearly 10% of the world’s oil reserves, and this wealth helps it punch above its weight. Like many emerging countries today, it straddles political and economic divisions.
It is a closed autocracy, yet one of the world’s most open economies. It is a close ally of America, but its biggest trading partner is China. Although its GDP per person exceeds that of Britain or France, it is often seen as part of the global south and is a hub for Indian and African businesses, making it the Singapore of the Middle East.
And in 2020 it was one of the first Gulf countries to normalise relations with Israel. As a consequence, the UAE is prospering even as war rages in the Middle East and superpower rivalry unravels the world. The non-oil economy is growing at nearly 6% a year, a rate that India is enjoying but that the West—and these days even China—can only dream of.
Talent and wealth are flocking to the country, as Chinese traders, Indian tycoons, Russian billionaires and Western bankers alike seek stability and success. Last year it attracted more foreign investment for greenfield projects than anywhere except America, Britain and India. Like Singapore, the UAE is a haven for its region.
But whereas Singapore’s ascent coincided with a golden age of globalisation, the UAE is seizing opportunity in a time of chaos and disorder. It wants not just to thrive economically but, more dangerously, to exert its political influence abroad. Both its successes and its failures hold lessons for middling powers as they navigate a fragmenting world.
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