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Geopolitics

How China's Iran-Saudi Diplomacy Stunned The World — Starting With Washington

The move is seen as a coup for China in its efforts to assert itself as a global superpower, while also presenting itself as a responsible and peaceful nation in the eyes of the non-Western world. The agreement is expected to help reduce tensions in the region and revive hopes for peace in Yemen, where the two countries have been fighting a proxy war.

Photo of Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman Chinese President Xi Jinping shaking hands.

A 2016 file photo of Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — There is the agreement itself, and there are the circumstances surrounding the agreement. Saudi Arabia and Iran had severed diplomatic ties in 2016 after the execution of a Saudi Shiite leader. The restoration of relations between these two rival Middle East powers is therefore no small feat.

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But even more intriguing, more spectacular, and totally unexpected is the role played by China. For it was in Beijing that Friday's agreement was signed. The photo of China's top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, surrounded by the Saudi and Iranian ministers, in front of a large Chinese painting in Beijing, attests to a world that has suddenly changed.

This is undoubtedly the first time that China has taken on the role of mediator in the Middle East, a stance that has electrified the region and beyond since the announcement of the agreement.


Among the most shocked is the United States, once the exclusive protector of Saudi Arabia, and Israel, which had been slowly shaping its relationship with Riyadh toward a shared stance against Iran and its nuclear ambitions.

Raisi in Beijing

For Beijing, in the midst of a new cold war with the United States, this is a diplomatic coup: China displays both its superpower status in an area where it was not expected, and presents itself as a responsible and peaceful nation, which is good for its image in the non-Western world.

The real role played by China in the negotiations is unknown, beyond providing the framework for the final stage, that of the signature. But what is interesting is to understand why both Iran and Saudi Arabia accepted this Chinese sponsorship. Each has its own reasons.

Iran, under U.S. sanctions, is emerging from its isolation and forging closer ties with Russia and China. The rapprochement with Moscow was manifested by the delivery of drones used against Ukraine. But not enough attention was paid to the visit of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Beijing last month, a prelude to this agreement.

Photo of Musaad bin Mohammed Al-Aiban (L), Saudi Arabia's Minister of State, Wang Yi (C), director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee and Admiral Ali Shamkhani (R), Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, in Beijing on March 10, 2023.

Top diplomats of Saudi Arabia, China and Iran for the signing ceremony in Beijing on March 10, 2023.

Luo Xiaoguang via ZUMA Press

Shuffling of cards

For its part, Saudi Arabia has been playing a more subtle game since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. It has emancipated itself from American tutelage, refusing Joe Biden's request to increase oil quotas, before the surprise rolling out the red carpet for Xi Jinping.

The Chinese leader was certain to be the first to shake hands with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman when Westerners were boycotting him after the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But there is also a more lasting reshuffling of cards, linked to the mid-sized powers on the planet.

What does this agreement change? It reduces tension between these two countries, which have been on the brink of war more than once. Its first effect should be to revive hopes for peace in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and Iran have been waging a proxy war.

Iran should also abandon its threats to its neighbor, such as when it bombed oil installations in 2019.

But what about Iran's nuclear program, which is dangerously close to the critical threshold of uranium enrichment? And what about other fronts of Iranian activity in the region, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon...?

The agreement raises as many questions as answers it provides. But it has achieved its first objective: to surprise, and to signify to the West that the world has changed.

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Society

Italy's Right-Wing Government Turns Up The Heat On 'Gastronationalism'

Rome has been strongly opposed to synthetic foods, insect-based flours and health warnings on alcohol, and aggressive lobbying by Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government against nutritional labeling has prompted accusations in Brussels of "gastronationalism."

Dough is run through a press to make pasta

Creation of home made pasta

Karl De Meyer et Olivier Tosseri

ROME — On March 23, the Italian Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, Francesco Lollobrigida, announced that Rome would ask UNESCO to recognize Italian cuisine as a piece of intangible cultural heritage.

On March 28, Lollobrigida, who is also Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's brother-in-law, promised that Italy would ban the production, import and marketing of food made in labs, especially artificial meat — despite the fact that there is still no official request to market it in Europe.

Days later, Italian Eurodeputy Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of fascist leader Benito Mussolini and member of the Forza Italia party, which is part of the governing coalition in Rome, caused a sensation in the European Parliament. On the sidelines of the plenary session, Sophia Loren's niece organized a wine tasting, under the slogan "In Vino Veritas," to show her strong opposition (and that of her government) to an Irish proposal to put health warnings on alcohol bottles. At the end of the press conference, around 11am, she showed her determination by drinking from the neck of a bottle of wine, to great applause.

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