The Russia-Ukraine war has brought about at least two major impacts on the global international system. The first one is energy crisis, while the other is the emergence of the new Cold War. On the one hand, taking advange of the energy crisis, oil-rich Middle East countries led by the Saudi Arabia have emerged on the world power stage. On the other hand, European Union countries with paucity of energy resources can no longer claim a pole comparable to the U.S. and China. They have become economically dependent on the Middle East, while strategically reliant on the United States. Meanwhile, the Biden administration's diplomatic grand strategy is to use the Russia-Ukraine war to create a new Cold War in order to regain the leadership of the democratic camp for the US, whose national power is already declining. The Russia-Ukraine war has led to the EU's dependence on the US due to security concerns, making it difficult for the EU to continue to maintain the strategic autonomy that Germany and France advocated in the past, and the Indo-Pacific democracies have strengthened their strategic cooperation with the US due to the fear of formidable attacks by authoritarian states. In addition, the Russia-Ukraine war also led to the questioning of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which put China-EU relations at a low ebb. Nevertheless, Communist China's successful mediation of the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two arch-rivals, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which highlights the Biden administration's policy blunders in the Middle East is another key variable affecting the Middle East's recent political situation.
The main purpose of this paper is to take the example of Saudi Arabia to demonstrate that the international system is currently undergoing fundamental changes and that the Global South is emerging and trying to increase its voice in the international system in order to gain a favorable strategic position in the future world order.
China's relationship with Saudi Arabia has grown significantly in recent years, surpassing the U.S. as Saudi Arabia's largest trading partner. In 2021, Saudi Arabia's exports to China exceeded 50 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for more than 18% of Saudi Arabia's total exports in the year. As a result, their bilateral trade volume totaled more than US$80 billion. China is now the largest buyer of Saudi Arabia's oil, while Saudi Arabia is the largest supplier of crude oil to China. Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Saudi Arabia in December 2022 resulted in the signing of investment agreements in a number of areas, including renewable energy, hydrogen, solar energy, information technology, cloud services, transportation, logistics, healthcare, housing and construction. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman proposed "Vision 2030" to develop electric vehicles, military, and communications industries to reduce the economy's dependence on oil, and to build a US$500 billion Neom city of the future. China's strengths in new energy vehicles, 5G communications technology and infrastructure have earned it the favor of Saudi Arabia, where it has become the largest foreign participant in Saudi infrastructure projects. The two countries also cooperate in the development of military drones. Moreover, Saudi Arabia has become a dialogue partner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with Communst China’s support. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia is actively exploring dollar alternatives as Communst China and Russia have been championing de-dollarization– or reducing an economy’s reliance on the U.S. dollar for international trade and finance –following Western sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. Saudi Arabia having promised China that it would switch some of its crude oil exports to RMB in the next three to five years. Saudi Arabia has also applied to join the BRICS (BRICS) group of countries.
When it comes to the US demarche toward the Middle East, the use of multilateralism by the Biden administration to maintain U.S. leadership also applies to the Middle East. In July last year, U.S. President Joe Biden visited three Middle Eastern countries, namely Israel, Palestine and Saudi Arabia. The main purpose of his visit was not only to ask Saudi Arabia to increase its oil production in order to solve the problem of rising oil prices in the U.S., but also to reorganize the political and security environment of the Middle East so as to make up for its declining influence in the Middle East, and to prevent the expansion of Russia and China's influence in this region. Against this background, the U.S. formed the so-called the Middle East Quad, or "I2U2," with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Israel, and India in 2021. In fact, this new strategic concept consists of two parts, one is the "Middle East Railway Network" proposed at the I2U2 forum, and the other pillar is the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and the Saudis as soon as possible under the security guarantees provided by the United States to Saudi Arabia. The power struggle between the two superpowers in the Middle East has intensified when Beijing facilitated the resumption of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran in March this year.
Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser who is an expert on the Middle East, was so embarrassed that he launched a diplomatic offensive against the Saudis, and in May he traveled to Riyadh, where he met with the top national security officials of the UAE and India, and actively planned to link the Persian Gulf and the Arab countries through the railroad, and to connect to India via the port channel, making it clear that the U.S. is attempting to build a Middle East railroad port in conjunction with the Gulf countries and India to counterbalance the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. Sullivan pointed out that the core of these infrastructural cooperation lies in the strengthening of economic, technological and diplomatic ties between the Middle East, South Asia and the United States. The recently concluded mediation conference on the Russia-Ukrainie war, hosted by Saudi Arabia, was in fact a diplomatic counterattack by the Biden administration to save face after Beijing facilitated the resumption of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and China offered to mediate in the Russia-Ukraine war. The announcement of the first Saudi ambassador to Palestine, which is tantamount to recognizing Palestine as a sovereign state, could pave the way for the U.S. efforts to establish diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
（Adjunct Professor of Diplomacy and Director,Center for WTO Studies College of International Affairs National Chengchi University To-hai Liou, PhD）
