Showing posts with label US-Saudi relations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US-Saudi relations. Show all posts

Monday 5 December 2022

Xi Jinping visit to Saudi Arabia

When Chinese President lands in Saudi Arabia this week, he will be touching down in an energy-rich region with a growing interest in being a part of the Beijing-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization, says a report by South China Morning Post.

Xi Jinping’s expected arrival in the Gulf state for a China-Arab summit comes as the kingdom and other members of the OPEC Plus alliance are at odds with the United States over oil supplies and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Observers say Xi’s trip could be another step in the westward expansion of the SCO, with China growing not only as a trade partner but also an investor in the Gulf’s lucrative energy sector.

“It’s going to be a very, very energy-focused meeting,” said Raffaello Pantucci, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

“It’s also going to be another meeting that’s focused in this direction because what we’ve seen with the Saudis is a clear reticence by them towards the United States.”

The US ties with Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude oil exporter, and other suppliers in the OPEC Plus alliance, soured after they decided to sharply cut production to support prices.

The US said the decision would worsen global inflation and support Russia’s oil revenue from China and other markets that is used to fund war efforts in Ukraine

Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia remained China’s biggest source of oil in October, according to Chinese customs data. It is also an SCO dialogue partner interested in an upgrade to observer status.

Pantucci said the Gulf’s tensions with the US presented an opportunity for China in Riyadh.

“The Chinese want to capitalize on that and highlight the fact that Saudi Arabia is a great independent country who works with us happily. I think that’s one narrative they want to push out,” Pantucci said.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, Egypt and Qatar have also become SCO dialogue partners, and sanctions-battered Iran – whose largest petroleum customer is China – passed a bill late November to join the group.

Russia, China’s second-biggest oil supplier, is a founding member.

Li Lifan, head of the SCO centre at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said that once Iran joined the group, it could help the SCO expand its energy club – a Moscow-led platform for SCO countries to discuss energy trade without binding commitments.

SCO leaders have already identified the transition towards renewable energy sources as an area for cooperation, with ambitions of developing a common energy strategy across Eurasia.

Beijing has touted the 3,666km (2,280-mile) Central Asia-China pipeline that supplies natural gas from Turkmenistan to China as a success, and in November Chinese Premier Li Keqiang called on SCO counterparts to advance cooperation over energy security.

However, there are questions about the SCO’s role beyond dialogue on securing energy for China and counterbalancing Western energy interests in the region.

Pantucci said the focus in the West was more on tangible outcomes, which the SCO did not appear to generate.

“I think the problem in the West, at least the Western analysis, is an obsession with things, doing things, and this organization doesn’t do much,” Pantucci said. “Our collective response in the West is, ‘Well, it doesn’t do much then it can’t be important.’”

But he said the SCO membership would help Iran rhetorically, and practically, allowing it to take part in regular talks with other countries.

“Who knows what benefits might come from there?

“For Iran, to be able to associate itself with such a structure and be a member of it shows the Iranian people, for one thing, and it shows the world that Iran isn’t an isolated country.”

Li, the SCO researcher in Shanghai, agreed that Iran could use the group as a platform to grow its influence against what it sees as hegemony from the West.

“Even if it is being squeezed out in the United Nations, at least the SCO can give it a platform every year for its ministers, department heads, state leaders and prime ministers. That way, it can have a say in the international arena,” he said.

Li said the SCO could play a further role in reducing the use of US dollars in energy trade by promoting local currencies, pointing to a Russia-China gas deal denominated in the rouble and the yuan.

Sana Hashmi, a postdoctoral fellow at Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation in Taipei, said that while the SCO was not developed as an “anti-West coalition”, China had become an economic guarantor to SCO countries, and the group could keep US influence out of Central Asia.

One advantage China had over the US was its willingness to cooperate with no strings attached, she said. “Every country has a very different reason why they are becoming anti-West, but at least they have a common reason to be a part of something like SCO.”

 

 

 

Friday 22 April 2022

Michael Ratney likely new US ambassador to Saudi Arabia

President Joe Biden is anticipated to nominate Michael Ratney, a career member of the foreign service, to serve as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, the White House announced Friday.

Ratney most recently served as the ChargĂ© d’Affaires at the US Embassy in Jerusalem while Biden’s choice for ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides, awaited confirmation. He has served in various State Department roles focused on Israel and the Middle East.

If confirmed, Ratney would serve as Biden’s envoy to the Kingdom at a precarious time for US-Saudi relations. The Biden administration has looked to Saudi Arabia and others to step up oil supply amid rising gas prices after the US and some other nations banned Russian oil imports over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Relations with Saudi Arabia have also been complicated given the kingdom’s human rights abuses, particularly the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Biden vowed last year to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for Khashoggi’s murder after US officials determined Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Crown Prince Mohammed refused to speak with Biden about the US banning Russian oil imports. The White House called the report inaccurate.

Michael Alan Ratney born in 1961 is at present the ChargĂ© d'Affaires of the United States Embassy in Israel. He was most recently the Dean of the School of Language Studies at the Department of State's Foreign Service Institute. Prior to that, Ratney served as the State Department's Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Levant and Israel-Palestinian Affairs and, from 2015 to 2017, as the US Special Envoy for Syria. From 2012 to 2015, Ratney was the US Consul General in Jerusalem. Until 2012, Ratney was Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Media and, before that, Spokesman for the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. He is the current nominee to be the next United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Since joining the Foreign Service in 1990, Ratney served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Doha, Qatar, as well as tours in Mexico City, Baghdad, Beirut, Casablanca, Bridgetown, and Washington, DC. Ratney is from Massachusetts. He earned a BS from Boston University, and an MA from the George Washington University.