China and Saudi Arabia have been holding their second joint naval exercises, dubbed “Blue Sword 2023,” in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, and these will be running throughout the remainder of the month, the Chinese Ministry of Defence announced on 28 September.
According to a Chinese military spokesperson, the training is meant to emphasise overseas maritime counter-terrorism operations and include training in firing tactics, boat manoeuvres, helicopter landings, and joint rescue missions.
The first Blue Sword manoeuvres were held in 2019 at the King Faisal Naval Base in Jeddah, home to Saudi Arabia’s Western Fleet. The three-day exercise brought together diverse military formations from both sides and focused on storming rebel strongholds and liberating hostages and testing counter-terrorism techniques.
Riyadh and Beijing have been working for some time to deepen friendly and pragmatic relations between their two militaries and to improve the practical training of their forces. But this year’s manoeuvres also included deepening high-level relations between the two sides that appear to be intended to convey messages to Washington against the backdrop of mounting tensions between China and the US.
It is probably no coincidence that China announced the exercises soon after the US announced its intention to continue to support Taiwan politically and militarily.
It is also noteworthy that the exercises between Beijing and Saudi Arabia coincide with two weeks of maritime exercises between the US and the Philippines. These exercises, entitled “Sama Sama,” or “together,” are the seventh and largest iteration thus far and are taking place amid rising tensions between Manila and Beijing over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
China has also been becoming increasingly involved in attempts to resolve the chronic political crises in the region, and the second Blue Sword exercises come soon after Beijing’s success in brokering a landmark agreement between Riyadh and Tehran to resume diplomatic relations.
The exercises reflect the growing strategic coordination between Beijing and Riyadh and their desire to broaden cooperation in different fields. The spokesman referred to the two countries’ readiness to strengthen and advance their strategic cooperation when announcing the military exercises.
By contrast, there have been increasing reports of problems in the talks between Riyadh and Washington about a mutual defence treaty. The US has also announced that it will withdraw four THAAD and Patriot missile batteries with their crews from Saudi Arabia as part of a broader plan to reduce its presence in the Middle East to a limited land and sea force.
The missile systems will be transferred to Southeast Asia to counter Chinese threats.
Meanwhile, there have been remarkable developments in US-Iranian relations. Washington and Tehran have agreed to resolve some of their outstanding differences, and Tehran has released several US citizens who had been detained in Iran for several years. In exchange, the US has released a portion of frozen Iranian assets.
The Chinese-US competition in the Gulf is clearly intensifying, and this month’s joint naval exercises should be seen in the context of the growing frequency of visits by Chinese officials to the region in order to strengthen their country’s presence and influence in the Gulf and its vicinity.
While the joint exercises are the second edition of the Blue Sword exercises and will therefore have been previously planned, both sides see them as a means to achieve various ends.
Riyadh is keen to show that it has the will and ability to expand its strategic options and diversify its economic and political partners, even if they include countries that Washington has identified as adversaries. It also wants to demonstrate that it has alternatives to turn to for its military needs, thereby alleviating US pressures on it over various controversial issues.
Friction between Washington and Riyadh has been palpable on several occasions since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. An example was when Riyadh agreed to reduce oil production in the framework of the OPEC+ group, which Washington interpreted as an act of support for Russia in the face of Western sanctions.
Washington is also disconcerted by the invitation Saudi Arabia has recently received to join the BRICS group of countries, which was strongly supported by China.
Economic cooperation between Riyadh and Beijing has progressed rapidly to the extent that China has now become Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner. The volume of bilateral trade between the two countries now stands at around $106 billion. During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Riyadh in December 2022, the two countries signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement that President Xi said would usher in a new era for his country’s relations with the Kingdom, the Arab region, and the Gulf.
As the second edition of the Blue Sword naval drills indicates, the two countries have come a long way in deepening their military cooperation, and in August this year they held high-level talks aimed at bolstering their cooperation on defence.
Beijing also has messages it wants to convey through the Blue Sword manoeuvres. Most of these are addressed to Washington and the Western bloc and are intended to say that China is still able to build its influence and cooperation with Washington’s traditional partners.
They also say that Beijing has the wherewithal to compete with Washington in the Gulf, which the US regards as one of its strategic areas of influence, and that it will continue to pursue its foreign policy agenda in its capacity as a major world power.
China hopes to use its relations in the Gulf to counter US pressures on it over Taiwan and other issues. It now appears that it has accomplished that aim, at least with Saudi Arabia, which is going ahead with the naval exercises despite pressures from Washington.
Riyadh has also refused to fall into line with the US-led campaign to condemn human rights practices in China, which is part of the West’s strategy to isolate China.
For many observers, China has accurately read the situation between Washington and Saudi Arabia and is taking advantage of the tensions in it to develop military relations with the Gulf. Perhaps Beijing calculates that it will be in a better position to influence how the Western powers treat it over issues such as Taiwan, which seeks independence from China with US support, if it has an effective military presence in the Middle East region.
In sum, a meeting of minds between Beijing and Riyadh has evolved over the years since the first edition of the Blue Sword exercises. The two countries are now close enough together that Riyadh feels it can use Beijing to signal that it has strong allies that it can rely on should Washington push too hard on certain issues.
At the same time, Beijing feels that it can use the joint military exercises with Saudi Arabia as a way of firing a warning shot for Washington’s benefit, telling the US that it has the ability to encroach on areas of US influence in the Gulf if the US persists in promoting and backing Taiwanese separatism.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 12 October, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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