Riyadh Xi’s first stop on Middle East tour
Chinese president will act as ‘persuader’ between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and will try to project influence in the region
RIYADH // Chinese president Xi Jinping yesterday arrived in Saudi Arabia, the first stop on a trip to raise the economic giant’s political profile in the Middle East.
Mr Xi, on his first presidential visit to the region, will also travel to Egypt and Iran during his fiveday tour.
State television showed the president meeting King Salman, and the official Saudi Press Agency (Spa) said the monarch held a luncheon banquet in Mr Xi’s honour that was attended by several members of the royal family.
“Since China and Saudi Arabia forged diplomatic ties 26 years ago, our relationship has developed by leaps and bounds, with mutual political trust deepening continuously and rich results in cooperation in various fields,” Mr Xi was quoted as saying by China’s official Xinhua news agency.
The president said he foresaw a fruitful visit “conducive to lifting our cooperation in various fields to a new level, and to elevating the collective cooperation between China and GCC nations”. Mr Xi and King Salman will today inaugurate an energy research centre in Riyadh.
They will also open, remotely from the capital, a refinery on the kingdom’s Gulf coast. The refinery is a joint venture between state-owned Saudi Aramco and China Petrochemical Corp.
Chinese flags were flying in central Riyadh for the high-profile visit, to which the Arab News daily devoted a 10-page special supplement.
Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran reached a new high this month, when Riyadh and a number of its allies cut or downgraded diplomatic ties with Tehran.
They acted after protesters, angry at the kingdom’s execution of Shiite cleric Nimr Al Nimr on January 2, attacked and burnt Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran. “The kingdom and China both work towards world stability, peace and security. And the kingdom appreciates your efforts towards this,” King Salman told Mr Xi, according to Spa.
Mr Xi arrived three days after a historic international deal lifted sanctions on Iran in return for a scaling back of its nuclear capabilities. China and five other world powers helped to broker that agreement. But Riyadh fears it will further embolden Iran, which it accuses of interference in Yemen, Syria and elsewhere.
Last week a Chinese diplomat urged “calm and restraint” between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but Mr Xi’s trip was most likely organised before the discord, said Zhu Feng, professor at Peking University’s School of International Studies.
“Clearly now there are tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, so he will be going there in the role of persuader,” Mr Zhu said before the visit. “China will try to do what it can, but it still won’t play a main role.”
In the past month, Beijing has hosted high-level members from the Syrian regime and its opposition. China has consistently backed a political solution to the Syrian war, despite being considered as sympathetic to president Bashar Al Assad.
Iran is one of Mr Al Assad’s main allies, while Saudi Arabia backs rebel forces. In December Riyadh hosted an unprecedented meeting of the Syrian opposition, aiming for unity before peace negotiations with the Assad regime. The UN hoped these talks would begin in Geneva on January 25.
“China is the biggest importer of Middle Eastern oil,” Mr Zhu said. “So stability in the Middle East is what China would most like to see.”
Beijing was trying to project power and influence in the region, seeing an opening as US policy “hasn’t been very successful under (US president Barack) Obama”, said Willy Lam, professor of politics at Chinese University of Hong Kong.
At the same time, Riyadh has been deepening ties with major powers beyond its traditional ally Washington, which it considers as insufficiently engaged in the region, particularly in the face of alleged Iranian interference.