The pomp and ceremony of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia has drawn comparison with the banality and frigid atmosphere surrounding US President Joe Biden’s trip to the kingdom in July. However, the main difference is that the Saudis organized three separate regional summits for Xi – aside from the bilateral summit,…
It would be so tempting to qualify Chinese President Xi Jinping landing in Riyadh a week ago, welcomed with royal pomp and circumstance, as Xi of Arabia proclaiming the dawn of the petroyuan era. But it’s more complicated than that. As much as the seismic shift implied by the petroyuan move applies, Chinese diplomacy is…
On Dec. 9, China’s President Xi Jinping met with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to discuss deepening ties between the Gulf countries and China. At the top of the agenda was increased trade between China and the GCC, with the former pledging to “import crude oil in a consistent manner…
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has undertaken an official visit to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Here, he is set to attend a number of summits including a China-Saudi Summit, an unprecedented China-Arab States Summit and a China-Gulf Cooperation Council (China-GCC) summit. The meetings will involve 14 other heads of states from the region, including Saudi Arabia,…
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, President Xi Jinping has only left China once, to visit Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in September 2022. A second trip is now scheduled this week, when Xi is set to land in Riyadh to meet his Saudi counterparts, King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. On the…
The problem with most Western media’s political analyses is that they generally tend to be short-sighted and focused mostly on variables that are of direct interest to Western governments. These types of analyses are now being applied to understanding official Arab attitudes towards Russia, China, global politics and conflicts. As Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to lead…
