In the past few years, even as Washington has become increasingly wary of Beijing, Riyadh has signed a series of multi-billion-dollar trade and investment deals with Communist China. Currently China is a major importer of Saudi oil, and it is eager to invest in the kingdom as part of its massive infrastructure project in the Middle East and Africa. Therefore, writes Ilan Berman, the Saudis do not share American concerns about growing Chinese influence:
Today, officials in Riyadh are quick to portray China as a benign—indeed, benevolent—geopolitical and economic actor, and just as eager to downplay the potential pitfalls of closer engagement with Beijing. Behind that depiction lies a sober calculus: that Chinese capital is needed to grease the wheels of the rapid economic and political changes now taking place within the kingdom. . . . Yet it is equally clear that China’s deepening presence could leave an indelible mark on the House of Saud in at least two ways.
First, it has started to threaten the kingdom’s moral standing in the Muslim world. That’s because, despite the position of religious authority that has been carefully curated and cultivated by the House of Saud over the past century, Saudi officials are failing to speak out forcefully against the Chinese government’s abuses of their coreligionists in the western province of Xinjiang. To the contrary, when they have weighed in on the subject, Saudi leader have tended to strike a deferential attitude toward Beijing’s policies. . . . In February 2019, the Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Sultan went so far as to mount a defense of these policies, saying that China “has a right to carry out anti-terrorism and de-extremization work for its national security.”
Second, the kingdom’s growing proximity to China could adversely impact its older and more enduring partnership with the United States. Today, worries over China’s changing global role are a rare subject of bipartisan agreement in a polarized Washington. . . . Yet . . . this mounting unease is still poorly understood and largely unappreciated within the kingdom.
That, however, is a potentially grave mistake. The 75-year-old relationship between Riyadh and Washington is today at a unique inflection point. Changes in the region, and in the kingdom itself, make a “paradigm shift” in ties necessary, Saudi opinion-shapers say. But these same factors also require that Riyadh take Washington’s concerns about China seriously if the partnership is to prosper.
Read more on Ilan Berman: http://www.ilanberman.com/23844/the-risks-of-sino-saudi-partnership