Xi Jinping landed in Saudi Arabia for a three-day visit that includes bilateral meetings with the country’s rulers and his Middle East counterparts.
Mr Xi will attend the inaugural China-Arab States Summit and the China-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit in Riyadh starting Wednesday, after an invitation from the Islamic kingdom.
This is Mr Xi’s third visit abroad since the Covid pandemic struck the world in 2020 and his first visit to Saudi Arabia in seven years after his last diplomatic trip in 2016.
The kingdom’s state media reported that Mr Xi will hold bilateral meetings with the Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman.
Both nations, China and Saudi Arabia, are expected to discuss trade, infrastructure deals, and regional security as the kingdom looks to increase imports and exports with Beijing and expand its ties amid increasingly deteriorating relations with the US.
Mr Xi’s delegation is also expected to sign agreements worth $30bn (£25bn) with Saudi Arabia, reported state news agency SPA.
It added that a “strategic partnership” is emerging between China and Saudi Arabia, its main oil supplier, after years of growing ties.
Spiking oil prices amid a market in turmoil will also likely feature as a top agenda item for talks between China and Saudi Arabia in the wake of Russia’s Ukraine invasion that will enter its eleventh month soon.
The visit will be closely watched by Washington as the Prince Mohammed regime snubbed requests for oil by Joe Biden, but rolled out a special welcome for Mr Xi. The US has long seen an oil-for-security partnership with Saudi Arabia as part of the deal after the end of the Second World War.
Saudi rulers are also expected to convene fellow Gulf dynasts for a summit with Mr Xi, followed by a wider gathering with other Arab leaders before Friday.
Experts monitoring the outreach by Beijing said the visit is a solid move from the Gulf country to strengthen ties with China.
If the Saudis are “looking to extract more security guarantees from the US... signalling that they have the opportunity of strengthening ties with China is something that suits them well”, Torbjorn Soltvedt, of the risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft, was quoted as saying to AFP.
The key gathering of the GCC-China summit will be held on Friday in Riyadh, the coalition said.
The meet stressed the “importance of GCC-Chinese relations, as China is ranked first on the list of the GCC countries’ trade partners,” said the council’s secretary general Nayef al-Hajraf.
