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Xi Jinping hails ‘new era’ of relations with Gulf states as Saudi Arabia rolls out the red carpet

Xi Saudi - Yue Yuewei/Xinhua via AP
Xi Saudi - Yue Yuewei/Xinhua via AP

Xi Jinping hailed a “new era” in relations between China and Saudi Arabia on Friday as he attended an Arab League summit and met Gulf business leaders before his return to Beijing.

On the third day of the state visit, for which Riyadh prepared full state pageantry including a jet escort, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said “new heights” had been reached in the relationship.

“China looks forward to working with Saudi Arabia and Arab states to turn the two summits into milestone events in the history of China-Arab relations and China-GCC relations,” a Chinese official said.

The lavish state visit is a clear sign that Mohammad bin Salman, the Crown Prince and de facto Saudi ruler, is seeking to burnish his credentials as a key power player in the Middle East.

The visit also stands to benefit the Chinese president’s global profile due to his ongoing rivalry with the United States, which has a troubled but significant security relationship with Riyadh.

In a statement, Mr Xi said: “The visit will carry forward our traditional friendship, and usher in a new era in China’s relations with the Arab world, with Arab states of the Gulf and with Saudi Arabia.”

China-Saudi Arabia trade is currently valued at around $90bn (£70bn), while China is the biggest buyer of Saudi oil exports. The two leaders have signed a “strategic partnership” on energy and investments which is understood to have been the main goal of the visit.

Mr Xi - Saudi Press Agency via AP
Mr Xi - Saudi Press Agency via AP

This included a deal with the Chinese tech giant Huawei that will supply cloud computing services and allow “high-tech” complexes to be built in Saudi cities, according to Saudi officials.

The exceedingly warm welcome for Mr Xi is a far cry from the muted state visit by President Joe Biden in August when he greeted an unsmiling Crown Prince with a fist bump.

Mr Biden had branded the Crown Prince a “pariah” during his election campaign over the royal’s links to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi leadership, in 2018.

But in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he was forced to abandon that stance and travel to Riyadh as part of a failed bid to convince the Kingdom to increase oil production to ease the energy crisis.

The China-Saudi visit has caused some concern this week in the United States, which has increasingly poor relations with Riyadh and fears that Mr Xi may be trying to capitalise on this to curry favour with the Saudi leadership.

Saudi officials have signalled that they too are unsatisfied with the US relationship, warning that Washington has not done enough to tackle the threat of missile attacks on Gulf cities by Iranian proxy groups, such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The state visit also takes place amid a growing east-west rift over the ongoing energy crisis and Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, which has been met with an ambiguous response from China.

The Biden Administration suspects that Saudi Arabia tacitly supported the invasion of Ukraine by slashing oil production, a move that stands to benefit Vladimir Putin. Saudi Arabia denies taking sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.