Saudi Arabia is on the move. Led by Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, the Saudis are emerging as an influential regional and global power broker. In September, together with Turkey, Saudi Arabia successfully negotiated a prisoner swap deal between Russia and Ukraine. Among the 300 prisoners of war who were swapped there were 10 foreigners, including British, American, Croatian and Swedish nationals.
The facilitation of negotiations on the prisoner swap looks very much like a dress rehearsal for the eventual ceasefire and peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia when the time eventually comes. If President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and Russia President Vladimir Putin are willing to trust Saudi Arabia (together with Turkey) to broker the prisoner swap deal, the hope is that MBS and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan are trusted enough by both sides to negotiate an end to the conflict between Russia and the West being fought in Ukraine.
Nor are the Saudis confining themselves to regional politics. In October MBS hosted President Cyril Ramaphosa, a full entourage of cabinet ministers and more than 100 SA business leaders. The SA delegation returned with 17 memoranda of understanding and billions of dollars of promised investments. Ramaphosa confirmed at the press conference in Riyadh that MBS had expressed his desire to be a part of the Brics bloc. The issue of Saudi Arabia joining Brics, Ramaphosa confirmed, will be on the agenda next year when SA holds the Brics rotating chairmanship and hosts the Brics summit in Johannesburg.
For years we’ve heard rumours that Argentina, Iran and perhaps Indonesia are keen to join Brics, but the Saudis’ move is by far the most direct and decisive. Russia and China were already keen on Brics expansion as they want the bloc to be anti-West. For precisely this reason India, the originator of the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War, is against Brics expansion. With billions of dollars of promised investments, it appears SA has all but acquiesced to the Saudis joining.
I’m not sure what Brazil will decide. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is back, winning a razor-thin presidential election against incumbent Jair Bolsonaro a few days ago. My armchair analyst guess is that as a left-leaning former trade unionist Lula will be open to Saudi Arabia joining to bolster the heft of Brics so it can champion developing-country interests on the global stage. But, as we all observed while India steadfastly resisted all pressure from the West to condemn Russia, New Delhi is no pushover and may not be easily persuaded.
The most stunning international chess move MBS has pulled thus far was on US President Joe Biden. As a presidential candidate Biden called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state and said the administration in Riyadh had “no redeeming social value”. This was because the CIA believed MBS ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident living in the US. Biden subsequently had to eat humble pie and climb down from his high and mighty human rights chair to visit MBS in Riyadh in July to bargain for assistance in keeping oil prices down in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
On October 5 the Saudi-led Opec crude oil cartel nevertheless announced the slashing of oil production by 2-million barrels a day. Despite his humiliating U-turn on Saudi Arabia, Biden didn’t get the lower oil prices he thought he had negotiated. The oil price didn’t go up much after all, but Biden’s Democrats are likely to lose the midterm elections nonetheless, partially owing to their inability to keep petrol prices down.
Across the capitals of developing countries, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Brics bloc, everybody is working hard at the realpolitik game. The absolute dominance of the US continues to wane, and middle powers such as Saudi Arabia are working hard to forge new alliances and fight for a new future for themselves.
• Dr Kuo, a former lecturer at the Shanghai International Studies University in China, is adjunct senior lecturer in the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business.
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