Biden’s Faulty Foreign Policy Is Pushing The Saudis Into The Arms Of China
Over the past two years of his presidency, Joe Biden has completely reshaped American foreign policy in the Middle East — and the consequences have been predictably dreadful.
On Friday, Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de-facto leader Mohammed bin Salman signed a series of economic agreements totaling $50 billion, marking a major step in the countries’ growing relations.
According to a joint statement released after Xi’s multi-day visit to the kingdom, the two countries have agreed to enhance collaboration on a wide range of issues vital to their respective economic and security interests, including energy, trade, and terrorism, among others.
“The two sides held an official session of talks and exchanged views regarding ways to reinforce and develop comprehensive strategic partnership relations between the Kingdom and China, and all international and regional issues of common interest,” the statement reads. “Moreover, they stressed the importance of continuing joint action in all fields … and reaching new and promising horizons.”
Both sides also reaffirmed commitments to avoid interfering in one another’s internal affairs, claiming they will “support each other in maintaining their sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
While China and Saudi Arabia have maintained ties for decades, economic exchange between the two nations has increased exponentially in recent years. In 2021, the countries’ bilateral trade totaled $87.3 billion, with “Chinese exports to the Kingdom reaching $30.3 billion and China’s imports from Saudi Arabia totaling $57 billion.” Government officials from each nation also regularly partake in joint “business council” forums to find ways to boost economic relations.
“You name it, we are doing it with China,” a Saudi government adviser told The Wall Street Journal last year. “China is a strategic partner.”
Growing Sino-Saudi relations represent an alarming trend of growing Chinese influence in the Middle East. In addition to Saudi Arabia, China has heavily invested in Arab nations such as Oman, Iraq, Syria, and others in recent years as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure project launched by Xi in 2013 that seeks to expand China’s “economic and political influence” throughout the world.
As the Asia Times noted, China’s investments in the Middle East have allowed its “New Silk Road” to connect “from Iran through Iraq to the eastern Mediterranean.”
In Walks Joe Biden
China’s desire for greater global influence isn’t the sole factor driving increased Sino-Saudi relations, however. U.S. President Joe Biden, whose foreign policy is comparably worse than former President Barack Obama’s, deserves a great deal of credit for helping foment the two countries’ blossoming relationship.
Over the past few years, Biden has taken a notably antagonistic stance on America’s ties with Saudi Arabia. Before he became president, the then-candidate pledged during the 2020 Democrat presidential primary to make Saudi Arabia “the pariah that they are” for the kingdom’s role in the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. While Saudi Arabia is certainly no champion of human rights, asserting the nation’s government has “very little redeeming value” isn’t exactly a
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