China and Saudi Arabia have a symbiotic relationship in the nuclear sector, a Chinese official boasted amid widening Western unease about the two nations' ties.
“China and Saudi Arabia are comprehensive strategic partners,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Friday. “China will continue to engage in mutually beneficial cooperation with Saudi Arabia in various fields, including civil nuclear energy, while strictly abiding by international non-proliferation obligations.”
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Wang offered that enthusiastic prognosis for Sino-Saudi Arabian ties off the back of a report that Riyadh might partner with a state-owned Chinese company in the construction of a nuclear plant. That prospect came into view as Saudi Arabia moved to join BRICS, a bloc of developing economies that China and Russia tout as a coalition to undermine the global influence of the United States and its allies, after Beijing hosted a conciliatory meeting between Saudi and Iranian officials in June.
“Certainly, all of that was probably part of a diplomatic package that's been negotiated with Saudi Arabia for some time,” said Dr. Carla Freeman, a China expert at the United States Institute of Peace. “It's a message from Saudi Arabia to the West, as well, that they have new friends now and that they have some options other than the United States. And so, it gives them some leverage.”
That emerging dynamic within the fraught U.S.-Saudi alliance could prove most immediately applicable as Saudi officials try to pressure Washington to make nuclear-related concessions against a wider backdrop of U.S. efforts to bring the oil-rich monarchy into the Abraham Accords with Israel.
“The U.S. has said American nuclear aid is contingent on the Saudis agreeing to not enrich their own uranium or mine their own uranium deposits in the kingdom — nonproliferation conditions not sought by China,” the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. “Israel and some officials and lawmakers in Washington are worried that Saudi Arabia’s goal of developing a nuclear-energy program could pave the way for Riyadh to develop nuclear weapons.”
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, commonly known as MBS, is "prepared to move ahead with the Chinese company soon," the report said, later adding, “Saudi officials acknowledged that exploring the issue with China was a way of goading the Biden administration to compromise on its nonproliferation requirements.”
Taken together, Saudi Arabian official seem to be cultivating several geopolitical options in full view of the Biden administration: They could normalize relations with Israel in a U.S.-backed arrangement to coordinate against potential threats in the Middle East, or they could mitigate their rivalry with Iran, under Chinese auspices.
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“The Saudis are playing a weird game, which is to [reach out] to China while trying to use that as bargaining leverage in Washington, ” an analyst from India told the Washington Examiner. “And if done smartly it could give them the best of both worlds. But I feel like they’re doing it in a reckless manner ... they’re at risk of alienating a lot of people in the U.S.”
Wang, however, could sound hardly more pleased. “Our mutually beneficial and friendly win-win cooperation has brought tangible benefits to the two peoples,” he said.