Amidst Uyghur persecution and US strain, Saudi Arabia strengthens ties with China

Saudi Arabia is eyeing to strengthen bilateral ties with the Chinese Communist regime, amidst stories of heightened persecution of Uyghur Muslims within the Xinjiang province of China.

Recently, Chinese Premier Xi Jinping was on a 3-day go to to Saudi Arabia. During his first official go to to the oil-rich nation since 2016, he held conferences with King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

Xi additionally met members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and vowed to deepen ties with the Arab world. He additionally pledged to purchase extra oil from the Middle East and requested Arab companions to “conduct energy sales in the Chinese yuan.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Saudi Arabia for three-day go to, his first to world’s largest oil exporter since 2016 pic.twitter.com/qvd8hWcCnd

— Ghulam Abbas Shah (@ghulamabbasshah) December 7, 2022

Amidst waning relations with the US, Saudi Arabia is cosying as much as China with an elevated give attention to the instructing of Mandarin within the educational curriculum. As early as 2020, Mandarin was launched in 8 excessive faculties by the Saudi authorities to strengthen bilateral ties with China.

Reportedly, Saudi Arabia has educated over 300 native academics within the Chinese language, supported over 1000 faculty college students to take part in ‘the International Chinese Language Teachers Scholarship’ and arrange majors in Mandarin in 9 universities.

Ohud Al Fares, the undersecretary for Public Education on the Saudi Education Ministry, has knowledgeable that the regime has launched the Chinese language as an elective topic in some personal and public faculties.

“The Chinese language is one of the important world languages. It is taught with the aim of enabling students to gain the necessary skills. Teaching the Chinese language will be expanded as part of optional curricula,” she was quoted as saying.

Encouraged by President Xi’s reply letter, Chinese-language learners in Saudi Arabia say they may contribute their half to the deepening of #China–#SaudiArabia and #China–#Arab friendship. Impressed by their Chinese proficiency. pic.twitter.com/joKHx6RAqe

— Hua Chunying 华春莹 (@SpokespersonCHN) December 11, 2022

Recently, the Ministry of Education of Saudi Arabia has given the inexperienced sign to Chinese language textbooks which might be printed within the Yinchuan area of China. As such, it turned the primary set of international textbooks that had been permitted by the Kingdom.

The books, developed over a course of 4 years, mix Arabic and conventional Chinese cultures and are particularly designed to cater to the habits and studying strategies of Arabs.

Over 100 younger Chinese-language learners from Saudi Arabia wrote to Xi about their expertise and the Chinese Premier personally responded to the letter as a method of diplomatic outreach.

Persecution of Uyghur Muslims in China

The growth comes at a time when the Chinese regime has intensified the persecution of Uyghur Muslims within the Xinjiang area. It have to be talked about that Saudi Arabia occupies a big place within the Muslim world as it’s residence to the holiest websites in Islam, Mecca and Medina.

In the Xinjiang province of China, almost 1.8 million Uyghurs and different Turkic minorities have been reportedly detained in a community of detention centres since 2017. By stating that the camps are vocational coaching faculties, Beijing has refuted quite a few stories that it has tortured Muslims in Xinjiang.

The Communist Party of China’s (CPC) goal is to combine Uyghurs into the dominant Han Chinese ethnicity by stripping them of their spiritual and ethnic identities. Uyghur Muslims are confronted with re-educational camps, compelled labour, and digital surveillance, together with their kids being indoctrinated in orphanages.

The CPC restricts any information revealing the horrors dedicated towards the Uyghurs within the detention centres.