Saudi Arabia is seeking collaboration not competition with China, energy minister says

Saudi Arabia is seeking stronger cooperation with China on trade investments and energy flows rather than competing with the superpower, said Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman.

“We came to recognize the reality of today that China is taking, had taken a lead, will continue to take that lead. We don’t have to compete with China, we have to collaborate with China,” he told CNBC’s Dan Murphy during the Arab-China Business Conference on Sunday.

He added that there is value in working with China because they have taken the lead in getting the “right manufacturers” especially in the renewables space. “We will never go again to this zero-sum game.”

When asked why the OPEC kingpin has eyes on China, Abdulaziz said he believes that China’s oil demand is still growing, and it is a pie that Saudi Arabia is keen on capturing.

China is the world’s largest crude oil importer, and the Saudis have come up trumps as China’s top supplier of the commodity in April despite Russia’s cheap sanctioned oil.

In March, state-owned Saudi Aramco announced two major refinery deals, supplying 690,000 barrels a day of crude oil to Rongsheng Petrochemical and Zhejiang Petrochemical. The deals came on the heels of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the kingdom last December.

“This doesn’t mean we’re not going to collaborate with others,” the minister also said Sunday, citing Europe, South Korea, Japan, the U.S. and Latin America among the parties the country has trade relations with.

The conference in Riyadh was held against the backdrop of China and Saudi Arabia’s growing economic and diplomatic ties as both navigate increasingly strained relations with the West.

Saudi’s cabinet in March approved a decision to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a China-led security bloc that lists Russia, India, Pakistan and four other central Asian nations as full members.

When asked about skeptics being critical of the growing Saudi-China ties, Abdulaziz responded: “I totally ignore it.”

He likened business transactions to a pot that didn’t need to be divided among countries, saying Saudi Arabia “will go where opportunities come [its] way.” “There is nothing political about it. There is nothing strategical about it.”

“We are Saudi Arabia, we don’t have to be engaged in what I call it a zero-sum game. We believe that there are so many global opportunities.”