Jordan's King Abdullah II arrived in China on August 18 for his first visit in more than a decade, pressing for Chinese investment in energy, aviation and technology as the Iran war batters the kingdom's economy and its aid relationship with Washington comes under strain.

The trip, Abdullah's ninth to China but his first since 2015, is less a pivot than a hedge, an attempt by one of Washington's closest Arab allies to widen its economic options at a moment when the certainties underpinning its finances are slipping.

Jordan has been hit economically since the regional conflict began in February, targeted by Iranian attacks over the presence of several thousand US troops on its soil under a defence pact. China, a major buyer of Iranian oil that casts itself as neutral in the conflict, has not condemned those attacks, a silence that sits awkwardly against the security guarantees Amman relies on from the United States.

At the same time Jordan's aid relationship with Washington has grown less certain. US President Donald Trump has floated cutting American funding, worth more than $1.5bn a year, to press Jordan and Egypt into accepting large numbers of Palestinians displaced from Gaza under his plan to depopulate and redevelop the territory, a proposal Abdullah has repeatedly rejected as against the unified Arab position.

In an interview with Xinhua before the visit, Abdullah set out where he wanted Chinese money to go, pointing to his Economic Modernisation Vision, a reform roadmap to 2033. Renewable energy had grown from under 1% of Jordan's electricity generation a decade ago to about 27% now, he said, with a target of 40% by 2035 and a pipeline of nearly 1 GW of new generation and storage worth more than $1bn in investment. He said integrating AI into public administration was a further priority.

Abdullah also pressed the trade case directly, calling for stronger air connectivity with China to build inbound and outbound tourism, and pitching Jordan as a filming destination for the Chinese film industry. He said the kingdom was positioned as a regional manufacturing and export hub that Chinese investors could use to reach its trade-agreement network.

The king travelled with an economic ministerial delegation, with cooperation agreements expected to be signed. He is scheduled to meet President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang and Zhao Leji, chairman of the National People's Congress standing committee, and to visit Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Bilateral trade has grown to $6.7bn, with China becoming Jordan's top trading partner last year. Past cooperation has spanned the Belt and Road Initiative, a $2.3bn memorandum on a national railway, a roughly $700mn Chinese industrial city in Aqaba, and energy deals covering solar, wind and oil shale.

Abdullah said he wanted China to use its weight as a UN Security Council member to push for a two-state solution, calling the Palestinian issue the core problem in the region. Jordan backs an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital.