Russia and China’s differing engagements with the Houthis

On July 2, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov hosted a Houthi delegation in Moscow. According to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ read-out, Bogdanov discussed the “aggravation of the situation on the Red Sea” and the need for intra-Yemeni dialogue under the auspices of the United Nations. On July 8, China’s chargé d’affaires in Yemen, Shao Zheng, confirmed that his government was in contact with the Houthis about threats to maritime shipping in the Red Sea. The Chinese diplomat linked the Red Sea crisis to the ongoing Gaza war and called for “immediate peace in Gaza and humanitarian aid to prevent the crisis from spreading.”

Although Russia and China are in regular dialogue with the Houthis, the motivations that undergird these engagements differ markedly. As Russian commercial interests are largely unthreatened by the Houthi attacks, Russia expresses solidarity with Houthi narratives about Western aggression and sees the Yemeni group as a prospective partner in Moscow’s struggle against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). China’s engagement with the Houthis, on the other hand, is driven by threat mitigation, as it wants to ensure that attacks on Western commercial vessels do not extend to Chinese maritime assets. The Houthis regard both Russia and China as partners against American unilateralism but have a warmer relationship with Moscow.

Russia’s growing solidarity with the Houthis

Russia’s active engagement with the Houthis reflects its long-standing positions toward the Yemeni Civil War. Russia abstained from UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2216 (which urged the Houthis to relinquish Yemeni territory under their control and unilaterally disarm), criticized the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen, and opposed the United States’ categorization of the Houthis as a terrorist organization in 2021. While Russia strongly objected to the Houthi assassination of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in December 2017 as well as the Houthis’ missile strikes on Abu Dhabi and Jeddah in early 2022, it has been the most consistently conciliatory UNSC permanent member state toward the group.

In keeping with this track record, Russia opposes a military solution to Houthi attacks on commercial vessels. The US’s establishment of a multinational Red Sea security coalition in December 2023 was greeted with derision in Moscow. Sergey Balmasov, an expert at Moscow’s Institute of the Middle East, argued that the Red Sea coalition would be completely ineffective, as a ground operation would be necessary to counter Houthi drone and missile launches. When the US and United Kingdom conducted missile strikes on Houthi targets on Jan. 12, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzia condemned these attacks as “blatant armed aggression” against Yemen.

Russia has countered Western military actions with diplomatic outreach to the Houthis. On Jan. 18, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov praised Houthi engagement with Saudi Arabia as “fruitful” and warned that continued US and British strikes would make the militant group less willing to compromise. While Lavrov refused to commit to further Russian talks with the Houthis, Bogdanov hosted a Houthi delegation on Jan. 25 to discuss Red Sea security.

Russia’s diplomatic interventions did not moderate Houthi conduct but spared its own vessels from harm. Aside from an accidental Houthi missile strike on a Panama-flagged tanker carrying Russian oil on Jan. 13, which fell 500 meters away from the target, Russian vessels have avoided attacks. Ultranationalist commentator Sergey Mardan’s quip that “soon only ships carrying Russian oil will pass through the Suez Canal” underscores Russia’s confidence that its maritime craft are immune from Houthi attacks.  

As Russia-West relations plunge to unprecedented lows over the Russo-Ukrainian war, Russian ultranationalists have lionized the Houthis as anti-Western resistance forces. On July 3, Alexander Dugin shared a post claiming that the expressions “brave as a Houthi” and “I’m a Houthi at heart, I can do it” would soon be mainstream in Russia. In response to Western countries green-lighting Ukraine’s use of NATO-supplied weaponry to strike targets in occupied Crimea and Russia, Rossiya-1 television anchor Vladimir Solovyov and Mardan both urged President Vladimir Putin to arm the Houthis.

While these threats have so far been mostly bluster, a senior US official recently claimed that Putin considered supplying anti-ship cruise missiles to the Houthis. After Putin’s December 2023 visit to Riyadh, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman conveyed his opposition to Russia arming the Houthis, and this plan was reportedly nixed. The incident illustrates that Russian-Houthi cooperation is limited by Saudi red lines.

China’s threat mitigation-based engagement with the Houthis

Since Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed support for Yemeni unity during his January 2016 visit to Riyadh, China has provided rhetorical backing for the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen. Due to this stance, it had a more limited track record of engaging with the Houthis than Russia. Still, as early as December 2016, China hosted Houthi officials in Beijing to discuss peace settlement prospects in Yemen. This meeting was tense, as Beijing expressed concern about the Houthi decision to establish a cabinet of loyalists in Sana’a instead of an inclusive unity government. The ebbing of active hostilities between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in March 2022 did not transform China’s calculus. While the Houthis signed a memorandum of understanding in May 2023 with China’s Anton Oilfield Group to invest in petroleum exploration off the Yemeni coast, Anton swiftly nullified this agreement.

Due to Beijing’s uneasy relationship with the Houthis, it was concerned that its commercial vessels could be targeted. This would be a disastrous outcome for China, as it relies on the Suez Canal to transit 60% of its exports to Europe and redirections via the Cape of Good Hope markedly increase Chinese shipping costs. Aside from the Houthis firing five anti-ship ballistic missiles at the Panama-flagged, Chinese-owned ship Huang Pu in March 2024, China has so far avoided attacks on its maritime assets. While the Chinese foreign ministry insists that the Houthis have not given Chinese ships hard security guarantees, Beijing has dodged the worst-case scenario.

China has mitigated these risks through cautious rhetoric and shadow diplomacy. On Jan. 4, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin emphasized the importance of safeguarding civilian ships but did not blame the Houthis for escalating the Red Sea crisis. On Jan. 10, China joined Russia, Algeria, and Mozambique in abstaining from UNSC Resolution 2722, which condemned Houthi attacks “in the strongest terms.”

China also opposes a military solution to the Red Sea shipping crisis. While China did not join Russia in explicitly condemning US and British strikes on the Houthis, its Jan. 14 joint statement with the Arab League emphasizes the need to “respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yemen.” Tang Tichao, an academic at Beijing’s Institute of West Asian and African Studies, warned “the US military action is tantamount to adding fuel to the fire, which may escalate the Red Sea security crisis into a regional conflict.” Although the Chinese Navy has escorted Chinese cargo ships passing through the Red Sea and Somali waters, Ministry of Defense spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang underscored the routine nature of these exercises on Feb. 29.

Unlike Russia’s public hosting of Houthi officials, China has relied on clandestine bilateral outreach with the Houthis to secure its commercial vessels. Beijing has paired such overtures with engagement with Tehran on the need to protect Chinese ships. This discrete approach prevents China from playing a de-escalatory role in the broader Red Sea security crisis, even though the US and Saudi Arabia have requested its assistance.

How the Houthis view Russia and China

Despite major differences in Russia and China’s approaches to the Yemeni Civil War, the Houthis have long viewed both countries as prospective anti-American partners. In March 2015, Houthi officials announced that they were courting Russian investment in energy projects and planning to strengthen cooperation with China. Neither effort yielded hard currency, but the Houthis have continued with such economic proposals. In March 2024, Houthi political bureau member Ali al-Qahoum argued that Houthi cooperation with China, Russia, and the BRICS group (comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, with recent expansion to include Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates) would help “drown America and the West in the mire around the Red Sea, to get them bogged down, weakened and unable to maintain unipolarity.”

The Houthis seek to attract Russia by framing themselves as sharing in Moscow’s struggle against Western aggression. After the March 2024 Crocus City Hall terrorist attack, Qahoum accused the West of being behind the incident and using “criminal tools” to weaken the Russian state. Fellow political bureau member Mohammed al-Bukhaiti claimed that the US was trying to instigate strife between Russian Muslims and Christians and had shipped ISIS and al-Qaeda fighters to Ukraine. Yet even this solidarity has its limits. While Bukhaiti has characterized the Russo-Ukrainian war as retribution against US and British activity abroad, the Houthis have stated that they do not support Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Houthis historically perceived China as more accommodating of Western policy toward Yemen. In July 2020, Bukhaiti declared that China “lost its morals with us” by backing a “resolution of aggression” in the UNSC and siding with the West on Yemen to protect its economic interests. Since China brokered the Saudi Arabia-Iran normalization agreement in March 2023, the Houthis have sought to reach out to China as an anti-Western partner. Qahoum urged Beijing to “retrieve its vital role” in the region and end the West’s hegemonic and destabilizing policies. Bukhaiti also warned that the West spread Takfiri Wahhabi ideology to Chinese Muslims. However, Chinese state media outlets have not given the Houthis the platform that RT Arabic routinely offers them or emulated Russia’s amplification of Houthi grievances toward the West in BRICS forums.

The Red Sea shipping crisis exemplifies the contrast between Russia’s and China’s influence projection tactics in the Middle East. Moscow relies on anti-Western displays and has a high tolerance for disruption. Beijing depends on shadow diplomacy and is primarily concerned about protecting its economic interests. These stark differences complicate the Houthis’ ability to simultaneously strengthen ties with Russia and China.

Samuel Ramani is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank in London and the CEO of Pangea Geopolitical Risk. Samuel is the author of Russia in Africa: Resurgent Great Power or Bellicose Pretender and Putin's War on Ukraine: Russia's Campaign for Global Counter-Revolution, which were published by Oxford University Press and Hurst in 2023. Samuel frequently advises the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, US Department of State, US Department of Defence, and NATO on defense and security issues, and is a regular contributor to the BBC World Service, Al Jazeera, CNN International, and Foreign Policy magazine. 

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