Xi says China to cooperate with Gulf nations on nuclear energy and space

RIYADH - China plans to cooperate with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in the fields of nuclear energy, nuclear security and space exploration, President Xi Jinping said on Friday, showcasing his nation’s strengthening ties with a region that was once firmly in the U.S. sphere of influence.

“Working with many parties is what will move us, and the whole world, to a new stage of growth and prosperity,” the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said during a news conference on Friday, emphasising that the kingdom’s partnership with the United States remained an important one and that it rejected choosing sides.

Saudi officials have spent years working on a civilian nuclear program as they try to reduce their reliance on oil, and they want to enrich the kingdom’s uranium resources, which they say are extensive enough to allow for export. But they have not yet awarded a contract for the country’s first nuclear power plants, a bidding process that a Chinese company was invited to join, alongside Korean and Russian firms.

Space is an area of particular interest for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 37-year-old de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, an avid science fiction fan who set up the kingdom’s first space commission in 2018. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest exporter of crude oil, which is generally priced in US dollars. Moves away from that could chip away at the dollar’s global supremacy, though Saudi Arabia is unlikely to make any major shifts, as it pegs its own currency to the dollar.

China needs a steady supply of fossil fuels to keep its economy, the world’s second-largest, humming. That has been underscored by volatile energy prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this year and by a Chinese energy crisis last year that darkened cities and factories with blackouts.

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China's Xi tells Gulf nations to use Shanghai exchange for yuan energy dealsBEIJING : China's President Xi Jinping said in Riyadh on Friday that China and Gulf nations should make full use of the Shanghai Petroleum and National Gas Exchange as a platform to carry out yuan settlement of oil and gas trade. China and states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are natural partners Why not use gulf exchange instead.
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