Xi to Saudi Arabia? Editor’s Note for Thursday, August 11, 2022
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
My thoughts today:
Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 has not been out of China since January 18, 2020, when he returned from Myanmar. (Unless you count a flying visit to Hong Kong earlier this year to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the territory’s handover from Great Britain — and the Chinese Communist Party would certainly not want you to think of a Hong Kong trip as foreign travel!)
Will his first post-COVID trip be to Saudi Arabia? The Guardian says that “plans are underway” in Riyadh for a spectacular reception for Xi “to match that given to Donald Trump on his first trip abroad as president,” and “in stark contrast with that afforded to Joe Biden in June, when the U.S. president received a low-key reception, reflecting strained ties between the two countries and personal distaste between Biden and the de facto Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman.”
However, China’s Foreign Ministry said it had “no information to offer” about the visit to Saudi Arabia, according to Reuters.
Will the PRC’s Taiwan actions disrupt the global semiconductor industry? That’s the subject of the latest episode of ChinaEDGE: Live with Lizzi Lee, in which Dr. Bradley Martin, the director of the RAND National Security Supply Chain Institute, discusses the economic consequences of China’s possible blockade of Taiwan.
New on our TikTok channel with Susan St.Denis: The most famous ballerina from China, controversies about surrogate motherhood, and a TikTok version of my recent Q&A with William Yang, Why are Taiwanese people just chilling as the missiles fly?
Our word of the day is Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court (北京市第一中级人民法院 běijīng shì dì yī zhōngjí rénmín fǎyuàn).
—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief
