Saudi Expert Shreds Kingdom's Plan To Divorce U.S.

Chinese President Xi Jinping just returned from three days of back-to-back summits in Riyadh: the first with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the second with leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and the third with a larger group of Arab governments.

Photo Insert: The White House said Xi’s attempt to expand Chinese influence in the Persian Gulf region is “not conducive to maintaining international order.”

The result of the summit marathon was a number of public and not-so-public agreements on energy, trade, investment, technology cooperation, and various other areas. The summits ratified an increasingly close economic and security relationship.

Saudi Arabia supplies China with 18 percent of its energy needs, and it is expanding orders for petrochemical, industrial, and military equipment, much of which it previously obtained from the US, Mohammed Alyahya wrote in an analysis for Foreign Policy (FP).

The White House, meanwhile, said Xi’s attempt to expand Chinese influence in the Persian Gulf region is “not conducive to maintaining international order.” Commentators described Xi’s visit as a sign that Riyadh is abandoning its traditional relationship with Washington and pivoting to Beijing.

Chinese policy is simple and straightforward. Beijing is offering Riyadh a deal: Sell us your oil and help us stabilize global energy markets; choose whatever military equipment you want from our catalog and benefit as you like from cooperation with us in defense, aerospace, the automotive industry, health, and technology, Alyahya added.

In other words, the Chinese are offering the Saudis a bargain that appears to be modeled on the US-Saudi deal that stabilized the Middle East for 70 years. It won’t wash, he stressed.

Alyahya, a fellow at the Belfer Centers Middle East Initiative, says many Saudis do not want to pivot to China.

“For Saudis like me, nothing could be more disheartening than a divorce from the US,” he explained.

Alyahya explained that the Saudi government is well aware of China’s diplomatic initiatives and notes that it has gained a toehold in Africa via Djibouti but it was rebuffed by Pacific Island nations for trying to ram down their throats a security agreement drawn by Beijing, which is similar to China’s attempt to railroad a deal covering the conduct of Southeast Asian nations with competing territorial claims in the South China Sea (SCS).

China claims underwater features in the SCS and created man-made islets converted into naval and air bases, both of which prohibited acts under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that China ratified.

WEEKLY FEATURE : MVP Group Keeps Lights On During Pandemic