The zeal with which some US media, think tanks and politicians are trying to link China's increasing "clout" in the Middle East with the United States' declining influence in the region has markedly intensified with Chinese President Xi Jinping visiting Saudi Arabia this week.
President Xi is scheduled to attend the first China-Arab States Summit and the China-Gulf Cooperation Council Summit being held in Riyadh and is paying a state visit to Saudi Arabia from Wednesday to Saturday, during which he will talk with dozens of state leaders in the region. This is expected to deepen mutual trust and promote the upgrading of win-win cooperation to new heights.
Given the cold shoulder that US President Joe Biden met during his visit to Saudi Arabia five months ago, the US media can't hide the sour grapes they are squeezing. But the booming relations between China and countries in the region reflect the fact that the harder Washington tries to isolate China from the world, the more it isolates the US instead.
The US' weakening influence in the Middle East results from not only its condescending stance and America-first agenda while developing relations with the region, but also the fact that all regional countries have seen through the nature of its blood-for-oil strategy.
In contrast, China's interactions with these countries have always been mutually beneficial and carried out on an equal footing with mutual respect.
The increasingly closer ties between China and the Middle East are built on their historical friendly exchanges, strong economic complementarity and common support for multilateralism. It is not targeted at any third party, and it is not opportunism based on the US' strategic contraction across the Middle East.
But China and the Arab states have shared focuses in their development strategies, similar visions for development and complementary development strengths, which makes them natural cooperation partners.
For Washington, however, countries are either allies or not, democracies or not, civilized or not, and fundamentally those that share US "values" or not.
Compared with the high and pragmatic agenda of the ongoing meetings in Riyadh, ranging from green growth and common development to climate change and technology cooperation, the bad light Washington is trying to cast on them proves that the US is continuing to needlessly alienate itself from other countries.
In contrast, continuing China's recent intensive head-of-state diplomacy, Xi's visit reflects the strong momentum in ties between China and Arab states, which has seen the Arab countries collectively "looking East". It is hoped that the milestone summits can help stabilize the region and further promote shared development.