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Sinica Podcast

Beijing brokers a Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, with Tuvia Gering

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

Culture, China News, Hangzhou, Chinese, International Relations, Chongqing, Beijing, Sichuan, Currentaffairs, China, Politics, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, China Economy, News, China Politics, Business, Film, Shenzhen

4.8676 Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2023

⏱️ 68 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Sinica, Kaiser welcomes Tuvia Gering of Israel's Institute of National Security Studies, where he focuses on China's relations with Israel and other countries of the Middle East. Tuvia breaks down the agreement to normalize relations between Riyadh and Tehran, which Beijing brokered during secret talks that were only revealed, along with the fruit they bore, on March 10.

6:05 – How was China able to broker the Saudi-Iran normalization?

17:00 – Notable commitments from Saudi, Iran, and China

25:01 – China’s non-energy interests in and engagement with the Middle East

29:03 – Reactions from world capitals

39:28 – Saudi’s balancing act between U.S. security partnership and engagement with China

49:52 – Implications for China as a mediator in Ukraine and other international conflict zones

52:44 – Overview of China-Israel relations

A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Recommendations:

Tuvia:  King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard on YouTube

Kaiser: The Venture of Islam by Marshall G. S. Hodgson

Mentioned:

Tuvia's Discourse Power Substack

The China-Global South Podcast

Tuvia’s interview with retired PLA Colonel Zhou Bo


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Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to the Cynical podcast, the weekly discussion of current affairs in China, produced in partnership with the China Project.

0:15.3

Subscribe to access from the China Project to get, well, access to not only our great daily newsletter, but to all of the original writing on our website at the China Project to get, well, access. Access to not only our great daily newsletter, but to all of the original writing on our website

0:24.3

at the China Project.com.

0:26.5

We've got reported stories, essays and editorials, great explainers and trackers, regular columns,

0:32.6

and of course, a growing library of podcasts.

0:35.3

We cover everything from China's fraught foreign relations to its ingenious

0:39.3

entrepreneurs, from the ongoing repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples in China's Xinjiang region,

0:45.3

to Beijing's ambitious plans to shift the Chinese economy onto a post-carbon footing. It's a feast

0:52.4

of business political and cultural news about a nation

0:55.2

that is reshaping the world. We cover China with neither fear nor favor. I'm Kaiser Guo,

1:01.0

coming to you from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Last week, on March 10th, an announcement out

1:05.9

of Beijing caught many foreign policy analysts quite off guard. China had brokered the normalization of diplomatic relations

1:12.8

between two long-standing enemies, Saudi Arabia and Iran. There, in the accompanying photos, was Wang Yi,

1:20.2

who was until recently Minister of Foreign Affairs and is now the director of the Office of the

1:24.4

Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party, and there he was standing between Ali Shankani, Secretary of Iran's Security Council,

1:31.6

and Masada bin Muhammad al-Aidan, who is Saudi Minister of State.

1:36.9

In a statement jointly released by all three parties,

1:39.8

we learned that the meetings had taken place from March 6th to March 10th,

1:43.2

with the delegations from Iran and Saudi Arabia led by their respective top national security advisors.

1:48.0

And it was news for me, at least, that there had also been talks in 2021 and 22 in Iraq

1:54.4

and in Oman, though it wasn't clear from the statement whether China was in any way involved

1:59.4

in those. Immediately after there was a huge

...

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