No China SOI impact

Analysts, however, say that the Middle East is unlikely to become an arena for US-Chinese rivalry, given Beijing’s economy-oriented focus and its aversion to playing regional politics. The Saudi-China relationship is therefore unlikely to become a full-blown alliance.

Saudi Arabia is China’s biggest supplier of crude, and China is the biggest destination of Saudi oil exports. The kingdom’s economy is nonetheless tied to the US as its currency is pegged to the dollar and the sale of its oil is conducted in that currency. Saudi Arabia’s defense infrastructure is also heavily reliant on American equipment.

Jonathan Fulton, senior non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, says that China has a strict non-alliance policy and is unlikely to want to get bogged down in Middle Eastern conflicts.

“An ally is typically someone you’re aligned with against a third country or a bloc of third countries… and China doesn’t want to do that,” he told CNN. “They don’t want to get caught up in other countries’ issues, especially in the Middle East.”

Unlike Western states, China also offers Saudi Arabia its policy of non-interference in each other’s domestic affairs, an issue that was clearly spelled out when Chinese President Xi Jinping made a landmark visit to Riyadh last year

Fulton said that the two are unlikely to interfere in each other’s affairs mainly because “neither side matters that much to the other,” and that each state’s core interests are beyond the scope of the other’s priorities.

That may work well for Saudi Arabia, which has been on the receiving end of a barrage of criticism from the Biden administration and Congress for its human rights record. For China, it means that Saudi Arabia will continue its silence on matters such as its treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in northwestern region of Xinjiang, which the US in 2021 labelled a “genocide.”

After the surprise Saudi-Iran agreement was announced this month, the Biden administration appeared to downplay China’s role. White House Spokesman John Kirby said internal and external pressure, including effective Saudi deterrence against attacks from Iran or its proxies, ultimately brought Iran to the table, Reuters reported. But he welcomed it “regardless of what the impetus was, or who sat down at the table.”

Fulton said China’s mediation isn’t necessarily a change in its Middle East policy. It was a “regional approach to a regional problem,” he said, which regional actors saw the US unable to resolve.