BEIJING (AFP) – Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met China’s President Xi Jinping yesterday and bagged a $10-billion oil deal, pressing on with his diplomatic charm offensive in Asia following a global outcry over the Khashoggi killing.
Mohammed arrived in Beijing the other day following visits to Pakistan and India, showing the world that his country still has allies after the grisly murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate.
”China is a good friend and partner to Saudi Arabia,” Xi told Mohammed in a meeting in the Great Hall of the People.
”Saudi Arabia’s relations with China can be traced back a very long time in the past,” the crown prince said. ”Over such a long period of exchanges with China, we have never experienced any problems with China.”
He met with Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng earlier yesterday.
”Is the crown prince’s tour symbolic of Saudi Arabia’s pivot to the East? Yes,” Najah al-Otaibi, a senior analyst at the pro-Saudi think-tank Arabia Foundation, told AFP.
”Riyadh wants to strengthen alliances in Asia – especially now with the continuing fallout with the United States over Khashoggi’s murder and other issues and attempts by the EU to put Riyadh on a black list over money laundering allegations.”
Khashoggi, a fierce critic of the prince, was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October, a murder that tarnished the image of the kingdom and of the crown prince in particular.
Riyadh initially denied the murder, then gave several conflicting accounts of Khashoggi’s death, and now claims he was killed in an unauthorized operation that did not involve Mohammed.
The murder sparked global indignation, with US lawmakers pushing for Washington to distance itself from the crown prince, but the White House has maintained close relations with Riyadh, a major ally in the Middle East.
