Xi Visit Brings Saudi-China ‘Partnership’ And ‘Cooperation’ Over Iran

Barbara Woodward’s suggestion came two days after two United States spokesmen said Washington had no evidence that Iran had transferred missiles to Russia for the Ukraine war.

These statements followed Associated Press citing un-named officials “familiar with the matter” that Russia was looking to Tehran to replenish stocks of both military drones and surface-to-surface missiles.

Woodward said Iran’s weapons proliferation poses real and significant threat to international community. She added that Britain is concerned that Russia intends to provide Iran with more advanced military components.

With no sign of talks between the US and Russia to end the conflict, and with American officials suggesting any terms are for Ukraine to decide, both sides in the conflict are looking to replenish spent stocks or gain new weapons.

Both have used drones, or UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). Tehran said early November it had supplied a small number to Russia before the current phase of the Ukraine conflict, beginning February, whereas Ukraine has used US and Turkish drones as well as the Soviet-era UAVs used in this week’s attacks deep inside Russia.

US State Department Spokesman Ned Price said Wednesday that while Washington was “voicing concerns” that “Russia could look to Iran for ballistic missile technology,” the US had no “information to share at this point regarding current deliveries of ballistic missiles.”

"The execution of Mohsen Shekari by the Iranian regime is abhorrent. He is a tragic victim of a legal system in which disproportionate sentences, politically motivated trials and forced confessions are rife," Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.

"We have made our views clear to the Iranian authorities – Iran must immediately halt executions and end the violence against its own people," Cleverly added.

On Thursday, Germany also summoned Iran’s ambassador over the execution, with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock describing the Iranian regime's contempt for humanity as “boundless."

Earlier on Thursday, the Islamic Republic hanged Mohsen Shekari, a young protester sentenced to death in a sham trial for injuring a regime supporter and closing off a street in the capital Tehran. The revolutionary court had accused him of Moharebeh, an Islamic-Arabic term meaning ‘fighting against God” which carries the death sentence.

The execution, widely seen as a measure to intimidate the protesters, has drawn international condemnation with EU countries vowing further coordinated action against the clerical regime.

A diplomatic source broke the news but did not provide any details about what transpired. Earlier on Thursday, the Islamic Republic hanged Mohsen Shekari, a young protester sentenced to death in a sham trial for injuring a regime supporter and closing off a street in the capital Tehran. The revolutionary court had accused him of Moharebeh, an Islamic-Arabic term meaning ‘fighting against God” which carries the death sentence.

The execution, widely seen as a measure to intimidate the protesters, has drawn international condemnation with EU countries vowing further coordinated action against the clerical regime.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock described the Iranian regime's contempt for humanity as “boundless," saying that Shekari was “tried and executed in a perfidious summary trial because he disagreed with the regime. But the threat of execution will not stifle people's desire for freedom.”

Moreover, Vice-President of the German Parliament Katrin Göring-Eckardt tweeted that the execution “reacts with all (un)imaginable brutality to protests."

Since the beginning of the unrest, Berlin has summoned Tehran’s ambassador several times over the heavy-handed crackdown on the popular protests. 

So far, around 500 civilians have been killed by security forces and at least 18,000 arrested. While many have been released, around 1,500 face criminal charges, and at least 80 detainees face the death sentence.

Schuyler Moore, Chief Technology Officer at US Central Command (CENTCOM), said Wednesday that such ideas are expected to play a much bigger role in bolstering American troops.

CENTCOM is the US combatant command that covers the Middle East and parts of northern Africa and southern Asia.

“This tool is intended to do is to provide the opportunity for the boots on the ground that are closest to the threat and closest to their operational environment to mimic that environment as accurately as possible and to, as well, deploy threats against their base and to train against threats on their base that they see and that they interact with sometimes daily,” said army Sergent Mickey Reeve, who developed the counter-unmanned aerial system training software.

He added that the US will use the Red Sands Integrated Experimentation Center in Saudi Arabia to “pressure test” the new technology, but it will be moving around the region.

Sergeant Reeve noted the technology is not tailored solely towards Iranian-made drones, “but it was built to emulate any sort of Unmanned Aerial Systems.”

CENTCOM said there is an increased urgency for new technologies because of reduced US forces in the Middle East.

US forces regularly face threats due to conflicts in countries like Iran, Syria, and Yemen.

Saudi official news agency SPA is calling Riyadh-Beijing relations a “strategic partnership” encompassing both rising trade and regional security, contrasting with United States officials portraying China as a threatening axis alongside Russia and bemoaning Saudi-Russian cooperation in agreeing oil production targets through Opec+.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi in October said Saudi Arabia was a “priority” for China. While this is due partly to supplying of 1.77 million barrels of Saudi oil a day (bpd) reaching Beijing in the first ten months of 2022 (18 percent of China’s total crude purchases), overall bilateral trade reached $87 billion in 2021 and China is keen to extend infrastructure investment in line with its 149-country Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Saudi Arabia’s plans to diversify away from oil and develop the $500-billion NEOM city in the north west are widely expected to offer significant opportunities for Chinese companies, who are already active in refining and petrochemicals.

Deeping ties with Saudi Arabia has not stopped Beijing continuing as Iran’s main oil buyer, taking between 500,000 and 1 million bpd this year, despite the threat of punitive action by Washington under the ‘maximum pressure’ Iran sanctions introduced in 2018. Both China and Saudi Arabia are uncomfortable by recent US assertions that its foreign policy is based on ‘human rights.’

China has a 25-year cooperation agreement with Iran, reached in 2021, but last month signed a 27-year liquid natural gas (LNG) supply deal with Qatar, which shares with Iran the world’s largest gas-field, the Qatari part known as North Dome and the Iranian part South Pars. Iran has struggled under US ‘maximum pressure’ to develop LNG facilities – the form of gas most suitable for export. French major Total, an LNG specialist, reluctantly pulled out 2018 from a contract to develop phase 11 of South Pars.

‘Leveraging rivalry’

Saudi Arabia, like China, seeks a transactional foreign policy. The Chinese are this week reportedly ready for $30 billion in arms contracts with Riyadh, reflecting Saudi Arabia’s position as the third largest defense spender in the world after the US and China. Riyadh bought 23 percent of all US weapons sold globally 2017-21, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Xi’s visit will also include an inaugural China-Arab Summit, which is expected to include leaders from the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the wider Arab world, including Iraq.

Iran and Saudi Arabia despite a few rounds of exploratory talks still do not have diplomatic relation severed in early 2016. Tehran continues to label Riyadh as an enemy and periodically makes threats against the Sunni power, which considers Shia Iran a threat.

While some Persian Gulf observers continue to insist that nothing has diminished US sway in the region, John Calabrese of the Washington-based Middle East Institute in a briefing published Monday wrote that “Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab neighbors …situated both literally and figurately at the crossroads of intensifying global rivalry between US and China…seek to leverage [that rivalry] to their benefit.”