It is against this backdrop of pragmatic acknowledgment of its own vulnerabilities to regional and global tensions – and entrenched uncertainty about the role of the U.S. as a long-term partner – that Saudi Arabia began to broaden its international relationships, with particular attention on China.

Officials across the Gulf believe China will replace the U.S. as the dominant economic and energy superpower in the 21st century. For more than a decade, a majority of oil and gas from the six Gulf monarchies has flowed east to Asia in quantities that far exceed the cargoes heading west to Europe and North America.

In a further sign of deepening bilateral ties, in December 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Saudi Arabia to sign investment agreements across 34 sectors, ranging from green energy and information technology to construction and logistics.

Meanwhile, the Saudi outreach to Iran has been more than three years in the making.

It began after the 2019 oil attacks and focused initially on de-escalating regional tensions. Saudi and Iranian officials held five rounds of dialogue in Iraq between 2020 and 2022 to try to bridge the issues that divided them. These meetings formed the backdrop to the China-brokered deal in Beijing.

Reports have suggested that Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has invited Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to the kingdom, possibly during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that began on March 22. Any such visit would indicate a political will on both sides to move beyond the two decades of rancor and acrimony that followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and doomed an earlier phase of Saudi-Iranian rapprochement at the turn of the century.

A Saudi reconciliation with Iran would undermine attempts by the U.S. and Israel to increase Iran’s international isolation and is consistent with a Saudi desire to de-escalate regional tensions. This is particularly the case as Vision 2030, a plan to diversify the Saudi economy beyond oil revenue, reaches its halfway stage and begins to implement the infrastructure and tourism giga-projects associated with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Launched in 2016, Vision 2030 has struggled to attract international buy-in, in part due to investor concerns about regional insecurity and its spillover into Saudi Arabia.

Saudia Arabia’s unwillingness to take sides in great power competition is also evident in policy responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Saudi Arabia, as well as the United Arab Emirates, has resisted pressure to take sides in an era of strategic rivalries. One manifestation of this balancing act has been the Saudi decision to work with Russia within the framework of the oil producers group OPEC+ – and at the same time engage with U.S. officials over issues of oil output and prices.

The Saudi deal with Iran and choice of China as an intermediary is consistent with a deeper shift in Saudi foreign policy, which has been evident for some time. By adapting to changing circumstances, Mohammed bin Salman is looking to Saudi Arabia’s future and trying to strike a wider balance of power in what he sees as an eventual “post-American” Gulf.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

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Kristian Coates Ulrichsen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.