{"id":1783538,"date":"2022-12-22T06:07:10","date_gmt":"2022-12-22T11:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1783538"},"modified":"2022-12-22T06:48:48","modified_gmt":"2022-12-22T11:48:48","slug":"expert-says-saudi-arabia-is-moving-away-from-u-s-getting-closer-to-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/expert-says-saudi-arabia-is-moving-away-from-u-s-getting-closer-to-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Expert Says Saudi Arabia Is Moving Away From U.S., Getting Closer to China"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fexpert-says-saudi-arabia-is-moving-away-from-u-s-getting-closer-to-china%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1783538&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>With the growing closeness between China and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-saudi-arabia\">Saudi Arabia<\/a>, the U.S. sees the deterioration in its relationship with the Gulf country, according to Gregory Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is the most significant setback which the United States and the West has seen since perhaps the middle of the Cold War period,\u201d Copley told the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ntd.com\/china-in-focus\">China in Focus<\/a>\u201d program on NTD news.<\/p>\n<p>He pointed to the relationship between the West and the Middle East under the administration of President Richard Nixon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we saw in the early 1970s was that under President Nixon, the United States and the West achieved a great friendship with all of the states of the Middle East, including Israel and the Arab States and Iran,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was no real threat of mutual hostilities, there was a lot more positive growth and stability in the region,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>In 1973, the Nixon administration succeeded in <a href=\"https:\/\/history.state.gov\/milestones\/1969-1976\/arab-israeli-war-1973\">securing<\/a> a ceasefire between Israel and Egypt, and Syria.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd basically, what we saw under President [Joe] Biden was the absolute, under President [Barack] Obama in his term earlier, the destruction of that balance in the Middle East,\u201d Copley opined.<\/p>\n<p>He singled out the Chinese leader Xi Jinping\u2019s trip to Saudi Arabia in early Dec.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe objective of the People\u2019s Republic of China was to go in and say, \u2018We are a friend to all, and we will guarantee peace in the region,\u2019 which is something only the United States had been able to do in the past few decades,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenationalnews.com\/gulf-news\/saudi-arabia\/2022\/12\/08\/a-warm-handshake-xi-and-bidens-visits-to-saudi-arabia-compared\/\">characterized<\/a> Xi\u2019s visit as the \u201clargest and highest-level diplomatic event between China and the Arab world since the founding of the People\u2019s Republic of China.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo what we have is President Xi achieving something which had not been achieved since President Nixon\u2019s accomplishments in the early 1970s, up to 1974,\u201d Copley noted.<\/p>\n<h2>Different Receptions<\/h2>\n<p>According to Copley, there existed an enormous difference between the lavish welcome of Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Saudi Arabia versus the cold reception of Biden in his July visit to Riyadh.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere were no ministers at the airport to meet him. There was nothing special about his reception, the discussions centered around very, very minor and ongoing details,\u201d he said referring to Biden\u2019s visit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhereas when \u2026 Xi Jinping arrived, recently, in Riyadh, he was greeted with all of the trimmings of a full state visit, including flypasts, Royal Saudi Air Force fighter and trainer jet aircraft, with all in the colors of the People\u2019s Republic of China flag and the like,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Copley attributed the decline in U.S.-Saudi Arabia relationships to Biden\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/biden-defends-meeting-with-saudi-crown-prince_4602208.html\">criticism<\/a> of\u00a0 Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as he had been accused of orchestrating the murder of the Washington Post\u2019s columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 after Khashoggi went into a Saudi embassy in Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have a situation where much of the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia was becoming alienated toward the U.S. Biden administration, because of the basically the disruption of the [Abraham] Peace Accords, which had been achieved with so much difficulty and hard work,\u201d he added referring to the peace agreement\u00a0made between Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in 2020, under the mediation of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n<p>The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.<\/p>\n<h2>China\u2013Saudi Arabia Progress<\/h2>\n<p>Copley further pointed out the progress in the economic relationship with the Gulf nation that Beijing had made, marked by Xi\u2019s latest visit to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe People\u2019s Republic of China was making significant progress in negotiating oil sales from the Middle East, in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, the petrodollar,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSaudi Arabia has been toying with the idea of selling oil and gas to the PRC in yuan as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During his visit, Xi reportedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/saudi-arabia-gathers-chinas-xi-with-arab-leaders-new-era-ties-2022-12-09\/\">focused on<\/a> China\u2019s continued efforts to have the yuan used in place of the dollar as the currency denomination for the Chinese-Saudi oil trade by utilizing the Shanghai Petroleum and National Gas Exchange as a payment platform.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo what we\u2019ve seen is this great break in the dominance of the U.S. dollar in the Middle East, it\u2019s by no means complete,\u201d Copley noted.<\/p>\n<p>Xi\u2019s visit included Saudi-Chinese negotiations, a China-Arab meeting, and a China-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe deals which Xi Jinping has done, in the Middle East, [are] very important geopolitically, because it also links the Beijing dominated Eurasian bloc of states\u2014a strategic alliance between Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Iran,\u201d he said<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn particular, it gives them the link now down through Saudi Arabia, down to Africa,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>According to the expert, this linkage would help Beijing avoid sailing its shipment of goods \u201cthrough the Indian Ocean in the South China Sea up to Chinese ports,\u201d which he said, can be \u201cvulnerable to interdiction by Western powers, whether it\u2019s the United States or the Europeans, or the Japanese and Australians.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>No Long Run Remedy<\/h2>\n<p>In Copley\u2019s opinion, as China\u2019s economy continues to be in decline, the deals that Beijing struck with the Middle East would not be a remedy for the regime in the long run.<\/p>\n<p>Due to Beijing\u2019s zero-COVID policy, China\u2019s economy is hit by weak consumer demand, particularly in the property sector. The sluggish real estate market has caused a significant decline in local governments\u2019 fiscal revenue and significantly increased expenditures, resulting in a severe fiscal deficit.<\/p>\n<p>He said, \u201cit\u2019s really a dramatic point of change for Beijing. Either, they will make a dramatic breakthrough, and the West will subside, or they will fail and collapse within the next decade.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-hannah-ng\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/themes\/eet\/images\/default-user.png\" alt=\"Hannah Ng\"   style=\"display:none\"><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p>Hannah Ng is a reporter covering U.S. and China news. She holds a master&#8217;s degree in international and development economics from the University of Applied Science Berlin. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-tiffany-meier\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Tiffany-author-.jpg\" alt=\"Tiffany Meier\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p>Tiffany Meier is a New York-based reporter and host of NTD&#8217;s &#8220;China in Focus.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the growing closeness between China and Saudi Arabia, the U.S. sees the deterioration in its relationship with the Gulf country, according to Gregory Copley, president of the International Strategic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1707124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[6962,5364,6811,5458,4501,11099,4214,3668,4246,5155,3819,6259,4005,7238],"class_list":["post-1783538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-the","tag-arabia","tag-away","tag-bongino","tag-china","tag-closer","tag-expert","tag-from","tag-getting","tag-moving","tag-report","tag-saudi","tag-says","tag-u-s"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1783538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1783538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1783538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1707124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1783538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1783538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1783538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}