Chinese President Xi Jinping in Riyadh

Riyadh has begun to bear the marks of downfall of administration of President Joe Biden in Washington.

In the cloudy afternoon on Wednesday, the third-time Chinese President Xi Jinping cautiously climbed down the purple staircase of his special Air China plane at majestic King Khalid Airport in Riyadh.

Chinese Ministry of Defence issued details of the 21-gun salute that was fired to welcome Xi and of the aircraft releasing smoke ‘in the colours of the Chinese flag’ that escorted his plane in the Kingdom. The road from the airport to downtown Riyadh was strung with Saudi and Chinese flags and digital screens were installed at public places to give messages of friendship between China and the Kingdom in both Chinese and Arabic languages.

CNN and Fox News are mistaking the welcome of Xi with Trump’s 2017 red carpet moment in Riyadh. Well, at that time, it was an achievement for Trump to be hosted in Riyadh as his predecessor Barak Obama’s craze to ‘reset’ relations with the Kingdom had already cost the US dearly. Desperate to win Kingdom back, Trump undid the deal with Iran unilaterally and unceremoniously and flew straight to Riyadh as his first foreign destination after assuming the Oval Office.

Suffering from Captain America syndrome, Trump did sword dance with Saudi royalty before leaving for Israel. Savvy with the instability in policies of its security guarantor, the Kingdom had already started preparing for post-Trump era well in time. This is why it did not take long to adapt to Biden administration’s urge to ‘recalibrate’ ties with it.

Therefore, contrary to Trump visit, it has been an achievement for the Kingdom to have Xi in Riyadh on a three-day visit. The confidence with which Xi climbed down Air China’s special plane is telling. The high halls of Al-Yamamah Palace where he and Saudi King Salman signed the comprehensive strategic partnership agreement were filled with sense of purpose and seriousness. Hence, there can be no comparison between Xi’s and Trump’s visits to Riyadh.

Xi is due to attend three summits. It shows “shared determination of the Kingdom, the other Gulf Cooperation Council nations and the wider Arab world to strengthen cooperation and enhance strategic relations with China in pursuit of greater growth and prosperity for all of the countries and their peoples,” Arab News quoted Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud as saying.

In addition to China-Arab summit, the Kingdom has scheduled Riyadh Gulf-China Summit for Cooperation and Development and the Riyadh Arab-China Summit for Cooperation and Development for Xi to attend. Details of the agreements signed between Gulf countries and China will be released gradually, but there is no doubt that the visit is more than business deals.

In his signed article, published in Al Riyadh newspaper of the Kingdom, Xi divided relations between China and Arab world in four stages. At the first stage, he tracked origins of relations to over 2000 years back. He also quoted the famous Hadith of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) pressing on His followers to get knowledge even though they had to go as far as China.

Xi went on to mention that there is a surge in cooperation between China and Arab world over the last decade. Huang Zhaohui, Chief Executive Officer of China International Capital Corporation (CICC) also wrote the same point in his informative article titled “China-Saudi Arabia ties accelerate the global energy transition”, published in Arab News, stating that relations between China and Arab world began to boost in 2013.

If we analyse these two statements, we could conclude that the starting point of warming of ties was when Xi became the President of China for the first time.

Xi also wrote, “The Arab world is … a key force for upholding international fairness and justice. The Arab people value independence, oppose external interference.” He mentions that Arab states back ‘one-China principle’ and China’s support for Arab states on the issue of Palestine is ‘firm’. Similarly, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a press conference, “President Xi’s visit is China’s largest and highest-level diplomatic action towards the Arab world since the founding of New China and it will become an epoch-making milestone in the history of China-Arab relations.”

Saudi ministers and businesspeople are also eager to benefit the most from Xi’s presence in Riyadh. Ignoring all these activities, European capitals and the US are making linear conclusions about Sino-Arab relations with Arabs being producers and China being consumer of oil. They need to think beyond this predictable scenario. Both the Kingdom and China are fast moving to renewable energy and both have set goals to achieve in the coming years in this respect. Oil is not the defining factor in their relations.

An analysis of Western media and social media outlets show that protests in China and human rights issues in the Kingdom are taking prominent place to downplay the warming of Sino-Arab relations. The US has even officially issued a kind of reprimand to the Kingdom for inviting Xi and to China for enhancing its ‘influence’ in the Arab world.

On a serious note, such childish acts go only to consolidate relations between China and the Arab world, dominated by the Kingdom. The Kingdom has already shown the US that it is not going to take any dictations from it on oil production. China had backed Saudi stance on this matter publicly stating that cut in oil production is necessary for stability in the international market.

Against this backdrop, it could be safely stated that Riyadh is the venue where the downfall of Biden administration has begun. If a regression line is to be drawn, it will show us that Republicans will come to power in Washington after the next elections, but they will be facing tough choices in wooing the Arab states back to their camp.

The Kingdom has kind of gone to the point of no return and Xi-led China is the valve to exit the pressure cooker Democrats in the US had put it in for long. It, however, remains to be seen whether the kings and crown princes will be able to get freedom from the castles of ego they have constructed around them or not?

The writer teaches mediatization at International Islamic University Islamabad