The Dragon Settles for the Gulf
Xi Jinping’s visit to Riyadh just cannot be seen as a distraction from events back home. There’s more to this partnership and push towards the Gulf than optics; the dragon has been preparing to enter the Gulf and establish its grounds for a long time now. Chinese diplomacy among these countries has been notable, from deeper investment in understanding language and culture to creating policies based on its principles of “win-win cooperation.”
With its commitments shifting towards the Indo-Pacific, the U.S. is no longer the prime influencer in this region. This naturally offers ample space for China to increase its partnerships across the board. President Xi’s keynote was certainly important based on the theme of “Building on Past Achievements and Jointly Creating a Brighter Future of China-GCC Relations.” Notably, he stressed on about five key areas of Sino-Gulf relations: energy cooperation, advancement in finance and investment cooperation, innovation in science and technology, advancing aerospace cooperation, and lastly creating a people to people connection through cultural cooperation between these countries. The GCC has shown remarkable interest to secure its national interests through this summit.
While it is understandable to view this summit as part of GCC countries' bid to diversify relations, it still creates intriguing geopolitical dynamics given the great power competition ensuing between the U.S and China. The recently signed agreements between KSA and China is just one of the few examples.
Perhaps one of the key agreements signed between China and KSA is the Memorandum of Understanding between Huawei and the Communication Minister of KSA. Technology is at the forefront of the current geopolitical competition between the U.S and China, and Huawei sits at the core of all these tensions. The United States has emphasized on several occasions to its partners in the region to pursue or take heed of U.S policy in the region as “better suited to preserving prosperity and security for countries around the world than those that are demonstrated or touted by China”. A rather condescending imposition on the Arab world’s capacity to think for itself and its own national security. Notwithstanding the wishes of the U.S, KSA continues to pursue its own national interests, signing up to 34 massive agreements spanning from information technology to green energy- linking Saudi’s 2030 vision with China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative’s projects.
SoFor KSA, engagement with Huawei is aimed at advancing its economy beyond the petrol privileges it has. Technology is the new gamechanger, and with Huawei offering advanced 5G technology and affordability to countries like KSA who have been pushing for digital transformations in recent years will likely help it upscale mega projects like Neom city, human capital, etc. KSA, like most other oil producing countries is preparing for a post-oil future, thus opening itself to tech corporations beyond those endorsed by its western allies.
Such developments in a time of the “great-tech” decoupling show that the strategic interests of regional countries are starkly differing from what the U.S would like to stress on. While the U.S continues to distance itself from the Gulf and the Middle East predominantly, it cedes space to China from a geostrategic perspective, whereby China is focusing its cooperation based on tech and innovation instead of securitized relations. China is utilising technology as a massive inroad in the region, but unlike most middle power countries, the Gulf countries have been more than successful to create their space for an independent foreign policy, maximising their interests with both the U.S and China.
