With US-Saudi ties at a nadir, China’s leader comes calling
China is seeking more politically and ideologically aligned partners to confront what it sees as Western hegemony.
It was no fleeting fist bump, but a five-second handshake. And rather than a grimace and a stiff hello, there were smiles and warm words of greeting.
In atmosphere and pageantry, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping – who arrived at the government palace in Riyadh flanked by a cavalry escort – was a universe away from the awkward exchange the prince had with United States President Joe Biden just a few months ago.
And it carried an unmistakable message: if Washington intends to pivot its foreign policy towards Asia, then so can Riyadh – but with the aim of turning Beijing into a friend rather than an adversary.
On only his third trip outside China in nearly three years, Xi landed in Saudi Arabia this week for a trio of summits. The focus of the summits is mostly economic, at least on the surface.
China gets almost a fifth of its oil from Saudi Arabia, and is that country’s largest trading partner. In the first half of 2022, Saudi Arabia was the biggest beneficiary of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the infrastructure financing drive that is a linchpin of Beijing’s economic diplomacy. Riyadh received about US$5.5 billion (NZ$8.5b) in Chinese investment, according to Fudan University in Shanghai.
This year, Saudi companies also forged partnerships with Chinese firms in building refineries and collaborating on projects involving construction, artificial intelligence and satellite infrastructure.
Saudi state media has reported the signing of 35 new deals worth US$29.6 billion (US$46.2b); a memorandum of understanding with China’s Huawei Technologies on cloud computing and smart complexes for Saudi cities; and a ‘‘comprehensive strategic partnership agreement’’, though it remains unclear what that agreement
would entail.
But beyond the economic impact of Xi’s extended visit is the political one, with China likely spying an opportunity to increase its influence in a region where the US has long held greater sway, and with Saudi Arabia looking to expand its diplomatic horizons beyond Washington.
US-Saudi relations are currently at a nadir. Biden won no favours with the crown prince when he vowed on the campaign trail to make Saudi Arabia a ‘‘pariah’’ for the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The prince denies involvement in the killing.
Riyadh was also frustrated by what it viewed as a lackadaisical US response to attacks by Iranbacked rebels in Yemen on oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which seemed to undermine the traditional oil-forsecurity
framework that has girded relations between Washington and the region for decades.
As a result, Biden’s fencemending trip in July yielded few results. Worse yet, in October, Opec nations decided to cut oil production in what Washington saw as a Saudi-led move that in effect meant siding with Russia in the Ukraine war.
Meanwhile, China is seeking more politically and ideologically aligned partners to confront what it sees as Western hegemony, as its relationships with the US and Europe have frayed over Ukraine and Taiwan.
That the Saudis would want to hedge their diplomatic bets should come as no surprise, says James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
‘‘The Saudis want the Americans to be clear, to be unambiguous about what their role going forward is and what their level of commitment will be.’’
But in spite of the new level of
warmth being expressed between Riyadh and Beijing, Dorsey cautions against thinking that Saudi Arabia is seeking to find a replacement for the US, or to further downgrade ties.
‘‘They’re diversifying and expanding their foreign relations, but they’re not fundamentally looking at change. And at the moment, China is not interested, nor is it necessarily capable of, replacing the US as a security guarantor.’’
Biden Administration officials have sought to downplay any concern over potential deals or stronger ties between Saudi Arabia and China that might leave the US on the sidelines. ‘‘It is not for us to say’’ which countries other countries should form partnerships with, State Department spokesman Ned Price said when asked about the China-Saudi summit.
Price acknowledged, however, that Washington is interested in wooing allies and partners away from countries like China, singling out ongoing efforts to integrate military defence systems across the Middle East – an arrangement where the US would not countenance Beijing’s participation.
Washington no doubt has some red lines over Chinese-Saudi collaborations, especially in the realms of technology and military defence.
One partnership is likely to raise hackles: China Electronic Technology Group, a state-owned conglomerate that was sanctioned by Washington in 2020 and again this year for links to the People’s Liberation Army, aims to develop drones for the kingdom’s use.
China and Saudi Arabia find common ground in a relationship that ignores human rights and political issues in the interest of doing business. Yet as China tries to further project its economic and political influence, experts say it may have a tough time balancing these relationships with countries that are hostile toward each other, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. The latter also bases its strong trade relationship with China largely on energy.
During a virtual event in May organised by the Carnegie Endowment, He Wenping, a professor and senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said such rivalries, along with the Russia-Ukraine war, had highlighted the difficulty in distinguishing economic ties from broader diplomatic or military support.