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bne May 2023 Eurasia I 67
China is working to expand its ties
and influence in Eurasia as part of its “tianxia” (“All Under Heaven”) foreign policy that stresses building mutually beneficial ties with neighbours. Eurasia has become a major focus of both countries as relations with the West unravel in what is becoming an increasingly fractured world. China in particular is looking to develop a land bridge from Asia to Europe that doesn't depend on maritime transport and so frees it of fears of interference by the powerful US navy.
According to the Saudi state news agency SPA, Saudi Arabia has approved a memorandum on granting the kingdom the status of a dialogue partner within the SCO – the first step towards full membership in the mid-term, which was discussed during a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Saudi Arabia in December 2022, reports Reuters.
The SCO was set up Russia, China and the ‘Stans of Central Asia in 2001 to better co-ordinate economic and security interests. It has since been expanded to include India and Pakistan, with Iran also expected to join as a full member next year. As a core concept, the organisation is based on the principle of creating a “multipolar world that also lies at the heart of Russia’s and China’s foreign policies.
It covers 60% of the Eurasian continent (by far the biggest single landmass on Earth), 40% of the world’s population, and more than 20% of global GDP.
Saudis membership of SCO also improves already good ties between Russia and the Middle East, where Russia has won kudos as a “honest broker”
in mediating in difficult relationships between the likes of Saudi, Iran and Israel; Moscow almost uniquely has good relations with all of them.
The decision by Saudi Arabia to join
the SCO followed an announcement
by the state-owned national oil giant Saudi Aramco that it has just raised its multi-billion dollar investment in China
by finalising a planned joint venture in north-east China and acquiring a stake in a privately controlled petrochemical group.
The growing influence and membership of the BRICS bloc institutions has shaken the White House, which has been touring the world on a campaign to bribe,
bully or cajole countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America to support the Western-led sanctions regime on Russia following the start of the war in Ukraine. However, the reception to US entreaties has been mixed, as many countries
have been subject to US bullying in the past themselves and more fear that the same sanctions regimes may be used against them should relations with the West sour in the future. The BRICS bloc offers a welcome counterweight to the predominance of the Western hegemony.
China’s diplomacy has also recently become much more aggressive after President Xi Jinping met with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on a three- day visit to ostentatiously show support for the Russian leader. Analysts point out that Xi’s trip marks a new phase
of more aggressive diplomacy on the international stage and can be seen as an overt challenge to the US claim to be the “leader of the free world.”
Washington views China's attempts to exert influence around the world as a threat and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called China one of the US’ main “rivals” in his first major foreign policy speech in 2021.
However, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have voiced concern about what they see as a withdrawal from the region by the United States, their main security
guarantor, and have moved to diversify their partners by turning to China and Russia.
At the end of December 2021 and
into January 2022 China held a series
of meetings in Beijing with foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain, plus the secretary- general of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The principal topics of conversation were to seal a China-GCC free trade agreement (FTA) and to forge “a deeper strategic co-operation in a region where US dominance is showing signs of retreat”.
China first cemented close ties with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) from around 2015, when the prince proposed floating Saudi Aramco in a $100bn IPO. China offered to buy the 5% stake on offer and although the deal didn't go through, MbS has been grateful to Beijing ever since, according to experts.
Relations with Russia also dramatically improved following the 2014-2016 Oil Price War, when the kingdom crashed prices in an unsuccessful bid to wreck the US shale oil industry and that almost bankrupted the kingdom.
At that point, Russia had stepped in
to support the OPEC oil production cuts in late 2016 aimed at bringing
oil prices back to levels that allowed OPEC members to begin to repair their decimated finances. That support was formalised by Russia’s membership of the OPEC+ cartel.
The BRICS nations and their emerging market peers in the Middle East are building up a series of non- aligned multinational organisations to counterbalance Western dominance of geopolitics. The latest brick in the wall is Saudi Arabia's membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. / bne IntelliNews
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