We must challenge the UAE’s role as a haven for hostile state activity

The international community has rightly become more alert to the threat posed by hostile states beyond their own borders. Putin’s war machine depends on networks that circumvent Western sanctions. Beijing’s repression does not stop at China’s borders. And dirty money and cross-border financial crime undermine the rule of law at home. Concerningly, the UAE has become a haven for all three problems at once.

Addressing this now matters because as the West is deepening its economic relationship with the UAE. The European Union is considering a bilateral free trade agreement, while the UAE is also pursuing accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). A closer relationship may bring economic opportunities, but the West should not avoid confronting some uncomfortable questions.

For me, the most disturbing aspect concerns the Uyghur people.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has subjected Uyghurs to a campaign of mass arbitrary detention, surveillance, religious and cultural repression, forced labour and torture in the Uyghur region. The independent Uyghur Tribunal concluded that China had committed genocide against the Uyghur people through the imposition of measures intended to prevent births. The UN Human Rights Office concluded in 2022 that abuses may constitute crimes against humanity, and Human Rights Watch recently reported that severe repression, including pressure on Uyghurs abroad, continues.

Beijing increasingly pursues those who escape its reach through what has become known as transnational repression. And the UAE has featured repeatedly in the evidence.

Research by the Uyghur Human Rights Project and Oxus Society identified the UAE among six Arab states participating in China’s transnational repression of Uyghurs. Human Rights Watch has previously documented reports of Uyghurs detained in the Emirates facing deportation.

Associated Press reporting found that UAE authorities arrested and deported at least five Uyghurs to China in late 2017 and early 2018. In one reported case, a Uyghur detainee was interrogated in the UAE by people believed to be Chinese police.

There are wider concerns about Chinese security activity. Freedom House reported that in 2021 UAE authorities detained a young Chinese dissident transiting Dubai airport and permitted Chinese embassy staff to interrogate him. His girlfriend said she was separately detained for eight days in what she described as a Chinese-run “black site” in Dubai.

READ: Netanyahu warned by UAE president before Oct. 7 events, failed to brief security chiefs: Haaretz

For Uyghurs, this is not an abstract geopolitical argument. People who escaped the CCP have discovered that its reach can extend thousands of miles beyond China’s borders. A country seeking a privileged economic relationship with Britain should prevent such repression, not become another place in which it is allowed.

Nor is China the only concern. Western governments have repeatedly identified UAE-based businesses as part of networks sustaining Russia’s war economy. The UK and EU sanctioned companies for their role in trading Russian oil, using opaque corporate structures and deceptive shipping practices to facilitate Russian oil trading.

The US Treasury has described the UAE as one of the jurisdictions Russia has exploited to obtain foreign-made technology and equipment, and has sanctioned numerous UAE-based businesses for supplying high-priority goods to Russia. It has separately targeted Dubai-based financial and cryptocurrency operations for facilitating Russian finance and sanctions evasion.

Then there is illicit finance and the rule of law. The UAE has made reforms and was removed from the Financial Action Task Force’s ‘grey list’ in 2024. Britain and the UAE also maintain a formal partnership to tackle illicit financial flows, with this month marking the anniversary of its strengthening. But cooperation should be judged by outcomes, not announcements.

Consider the case of Muhammad Tahir Lakhani and Muhammad Ali Lakhani, British citizens who were found liable for fraud of approximately US$45 million by the UK High Court. The judgment found that false representations had knowingly been made to lenders. Despite these rulings, the Lakhanis continue to reside in the UAE and have not satisfied the judgment. 

Difficulties in enforcing cross-border judgments on fraud in the UAE have become so significant that legislators have raised the Lakhani case directly with ministers. Yet when asked what representations had been made to the UAE authorities and what guidance was available to victims, ministers declined to provide information. That silence offers little reassurance that the existing system is working.

These issues should not be treated in silos. They reveal a broader vulnerability. An international commercial hub can also become valuable terrain for authoritarian states, sanctions evaders and those seeking to put assets, and themselves, beyond the effective reach of justice.

The answer is not to turn our backs on countries such as the UAE. The West has legitimate strategic and commercial reasons to work with it, and closer cooperation can be part of the solution. Indeed, the UK will host the Illicit Finance Summit this December, strengthening global enforcement against dirty money, and forging new partnerships on information sharing and asset recovery.

Trade cannot be divorced from national security, human rights and the rule of law. Before the EU enters any new bilateral trade agreement with the UAE, commissioners should demand measurable progress: no complicity in China’s persecution of Uyghurs; demonstrable action against sanctions-evasion; and effective mechanisms through which lawful cross-border judgments can be recognised and enforced.

OPINION: Indonesia-UAE ties need to go beyond the dam

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.