Why Blinken’s Saudi Arabia trip was really a ‘message for China’ as well as US allies in Middle East

Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Riyadh as Iranian embassy reopened following China-brokered peace deal

‘Alarm’ over China’s growing influence in the Middle East is driving US push to reiterate commitment to Gulf and Arab partners, analysts say

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Riyadh last week, the second top US official to visit Saudi Arabia within a month. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:15pm, 11 Jun 2023Updated: 5:34pm, 13 Jun 2023

The first trip to Saudi Arabia in roughly a year by America’s top diplomat was meant to signal to Gulf states that the US remained committed to the region amid China’s growing influence, analysts said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met senior Saudi officials last week during a two-day trip that coincided with the reopening of the Iranian embassy in Riyadh after seven years, the result of a China-brokered peace deal in March.

Jodie Wen, a postdoctoral fellow specialising in Middle East studies and a China Forum expert at Tsinghua University’s Centre for International Security and Strategy, said the timing was “interesting”.

“This is both a message for China [from the US] and a pledge to its allies … that you should not think we are leaving the region because China is here,” Wen said.

“This is very delicate timing,” she said, adding that the US had been “alarmed” about the Saudi-Iran peace deal from the beginning, on concerns that its influence in the region would be further diminished.

“I think a very important reason for Blinken to choose to visit Saudi Arabia at this time is because of the rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia,” she said.