Saudi invites China’s President Xi as relations with Washington remain soured - report

Saudi Arabia has invited Chinese President, Xi Jinping, to visit Riyadh as the Kingdom looks to deepen ties with Beijing amid strained relations with Washington, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the plan.

The trip could happen as early as May, after the month of Ramadan, which begins in early April this year. Riyadh is planning to replicate the warm reception it gave to former President Donald Trump in 2017 when he visited the Kingdom on his first trip abroad, one of the people said.

“The Crown Prince and Xi are close friends and both understand that there is huge potential for stronger ties,” a Saudi official is reported saying. “It is not just ‘They buy oil from us and we buy weapons from them’.”

China is the world’s top oil importer and the biggest trading partner for Saudi Arabia, which is the largest oil exporter globally. Further deepening of ties between the two countries is likely to concern the US.

The trip comes amid shifting geopolitics and souring of relations between the US and its traditional allies in the Gulf. The Saudis have rebuffed Washington’s demand to increase oil production in order to tame rampant crude prices which threaten global recession after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Relations have soured since President Joe Biden came to office. During the 2020 campaign, Biden called the Kingdom a “pariah“, and early in his term, released an unclassified report assessing that the Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, had approved the operation to “capture or kill” Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.

Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has been incensed by President Biden’s refusal to deal directly with him as the Kingdom’s de facto ruler because of the 2018 murder of Khashoggi.

In an interview with The Atlantic published earlier this month, the Crown Prince, known by his acronym MBS, appeared unrepentant. “Simply, I do not care,” he said speaking about his frosty relation with the US President. It is up to Biden “to think about the interests of America,” he continued adding “We don’t have the right to lecture you in America. The same goes the other way.”

MBS last met Xi in 2019, when he visited Beijing to sign energy and trade agreements amid the initial wave of Western criticism over the killing of Khashoggi.