World News | Chinese President Xi to Visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to Blunt US Influence

Beijing, Dec 6 (PTI) Chinese President Xi Jinping will make a three day-official visit to Saudi Arabia starting Wednesday during which he will attend the China-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) meeting.

While there is no official announcement here about his visit, Saudi state media reported on Tuesday that President Xi will arrive in the Gulf Kingdom on Wednesday for a three-day visit to the world's largest oil producer.

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The visit will include a bilateral summit chaired by Saudi King Salman and attended by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, according to the Saudi state media reports.

Xi will also attend a summit with rulers from the six-member GCC and talks convening leaders from elsewhere in the Middle East, the report said.

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The GCC is a regional, intergovernmental, political, and economic union comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Xi's arrival coincides with heightened tensions between Saudi Arabia and the US over issues ranging from energy policy to regional security and human rights.

His visit also comes in the backdrop of assertions by US President Joe Biden that Washington will not cede the Middle East to Beijing.

"We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia, or Iran... the US is not going anywhere,” Biden told the assembled Arab leaders when he visited Riyadh in July.

The US and Saudi Arabia are still embroiled in a heated spat over oil production. In October, OPEC+ slashed output by two million barrels per day in an effort to “stabilise” prices. The decision was taken despite heavy US campaigning against it.

The Chinese president's visit, which comes as he faces mounting pressure at home over opposition to his “zero Covid” strategy, underscores China's desire to boost links in a region that is traditionally seen by Washington as falling under its sphere of influence, the Financial Times reported.

Gulf officials make clear, however, their wariness of getting too caught up in any China-US disputes, in the knowledge that they have to maintain relations with the pair. China is Saudi Arabia's biggest customer for crude oil, purchasing roughly a quarter of Saudi oil exports.

Beyond energy, analysts say leaders from the two countries are expected to discuss potential deals that could see Chinese firms become more deeply involved in mega-projects that are central to Prince Mohammed's vision of diversifying the Saudi economy away from oil, the Voice of America reported.

Those projects include a futuristic USD 500 billion megacity known as NEOM, a so-called cognitive city that will depend heavily on facial recognition and surveillance technology.

Xi last visited Saudi Arabia in 2016, the year before Prince Mohammed became first in line to the throne, on a trip that also featured stops in Egypt and Saudi rival Iran. Prince Mohammed visited China and met Xi on an Asia tour in 2019.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)