Monitoring Desk
RIYADH: In a historical move, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will host Chinese President Xi Jinping this week at a delicate moment in United States-Saudi relations, signaling Riyadh’s determination to navigate a polarized global order without considering the wishes of its Western allies, analysts said.
In a show of strength, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will also gather the leadership of North Africa and the Middle East for an Arab-Chinese summit during the visit of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping due to start on December 06, Tuesday.
“Saudi Arabia is working in accordance to strategic calculations that it must accommodate China, as it is now a crucial economic partner,” head of North Africa and Middle East at Eurasia Group, Ayham Kamel, said.
Saudi leadership focusing on economic transformation
Though the US remains a partner of choice for the Arab world due to its reliance on Washington for its security, Saudi leadership is charting a foreign policy in the best interest of its national economic transformation as the world is preparing to shift from petroleum consumption to green energy solutions, Ayham Kamel said.
“There is definitely a risk that enhancing relations with China backfires and leads to further increase differences between the US and Saudi Arabia… but Mohammad bin Salman is certainly not pushing this out of spite,” the analyst said.
US-Saudi relations
The visit from the Chinese leadership is taking place at a time when Saudi-US relations are at an all-time low, with uncertainty over the global energy markets with the Western countries imposing a price cap on Russian crude and as the US warily eyes Beijing’s increasing influence in the Middle East world.
While expressing his irritation over Washington’s criticism of Riyadh’s human rights record, Saudi Crown Prince MBS told The Atlantic magazine in March this year that he did not care whether US President Joe Biden understood or misunderstood things about him, saying US President should be focusing on America’s best interests.
