China and COVID-19 in Saudi Media – War on the Rocks

China is the only country that has performed well in dealing with this crisis, declared Saudi-owned broadcaster Al-Arabiya in a March review of Chinas COVID-19 efforts. While nominally independent, the station reportedly taken over by the Saudi the royal court in 2014 tends to reflect official Saudi views. These views can change, however. In an April segment that covered mounting criticisms of Beijing, presenter Rufaydah Yassin commented that it appears that Chinas efforts to market its successes with regard to the coronavirus have not yet panned out.

In the initial weeks and months of the pandemic, a wide range of Saudi outlets offered favorable reviews of Chinas response, while finding little to praise about U.S. efforts. These discussions in Saudi Arabia, a close security partner of the United States with considerable press censorship, provide evidence of the damage done to U.S. standing abroad by its America First, America Only approach to the crisis, and of the abysmal performance of its government at home.

However, Chinas mixed record in boosting its image in Riyadh is a reminder that soft-power competition is not a zero-sum game. Even as Saudi outlets have grown more willing to air criticisms of China, some have derided the efforts of President Donald Trump and his administration to blame COVID-19 on Beijing.

Blaming China is a convenient electoral strategy but an ineffective foreign policy, with considerable downsides. If Washington wants to maintain its international standing amid COVID-19 including in places like Saudi Arabia it needs to focus first on containing and responding to the virus at home, rather than lodging accusations abroad. The United States should do what it can to facilitate a capable domestic response to the pandemic, while affording its diplomats the funding and political cover needed to offer small but symbolic forms of public health assistance overseas.

Initial Praise for Chinas Apparent Success

Within Saudi Arabia, media commentary initially highlighted Chinas successes in containing the virus. They cited Wuhans strict social controls while avoiding discussion of the lies and lack of transparency from the Chinese government that allowed the virus to spread in the first place. Although media commentary cannot be taken as a direct expression of views by Saudi officials, these statements and articles do reflect the bounds of acceptable public discourse, and as such, an indirect reflection of official sympathies with the Chinese model of durable upgraded authoritarianism.

Top columnists in Al-Sharq al-Awsat, a widely-read paper owned by King Salman and his immediate family, offered support for Chinas strict social controls in containing the pandemic. On March 16, Salman al-Dosary, former editor-in-chief of the paper, praised Chinas success in employing strict quarantines to lay siege to the disease. Al-Dosary, along with many Saudi writers, further sought to identify the Saudi governments response to Chinas as an example of decisive action to contain the virus.

Others made it clear that strict controls needed to be backed by a threat of force to keep citizens in line. The U.S. government does not have enough military force to keep ten million people [in New York] at home, unlike China, noted Abdel-Rahman al-Rashed, another longtime media figure who is said to be close to the Saudi Royal Court, on April 9. If China had not done so [in Wuhan], the number of those affected would be in the tens of million. He also encouraged readers earlier in March to focus on resolving the crisis rather than assigning blame. Maybe it started in a country before China, but its origin does not concern us as much as overcoming it and returning to normal life.

Evolving Saudi Coverage of China

While favorable views of Chinas example of authoritarian rule amid state-led development are hardly new in Saudi Arabias media and commentary, these perspectives have historically been balanced by criticisms of Chinas godless communist ideology and its hostility towards the practice of Islam within its borders. Yet as the two countries economic relationship has strengthened, even as the Saudi monarchy de-emphasizes Islamic credentials in its claims to authority, critical views have largely disappeared from the Saudi press.

Mohammed Al-Sudairi, Saudi expert on Sino-Middle Eastern relations, noted in 2013 an avid admiration by many Saudi commentators for Chinas economic miracle. Writing on the occasion of the 2010 Shanghai expo, Saudi columnist Mohammed al-Makhlouf highlighted Chinas enormous strides in economic development. This article was carried by Al-Watan, a more populist broadsheet that has occasionally championed issues of social or political reform in the kingdom.

In years past, however, this admiration was tempered by concerns about Chinas treatment of Muslim minorities an area of particular concern for citizens of a kingdom that claims leadership of the Muslim world. Despite official silence over a 2009 crackdown on protests and riots by Chinas Uighur Muslim minority, Saudi newspapers helped spur popular outrage over treatment of Muslims within China.

Others focused on Chinese repression more broadly. Chinese citizens cannot object to [state repression] in a country that executes five thousand of its citizens every year, some of them for minor crimes such as tax evasion, noted Muhammad Alwan in 2011, also for Al-Watan. This pushback contributed to Saudi views of China that were unusually unfavorable for the Arab world.

However, with the recent rise to power of Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, criticism of China (among many other topics) has been muted. This reflects a shrinking sphere for political commentary as well as repression of all forms of political Islam within the country.

The Chinese government has thus found a more receptive audience for its efforts to normalize the repression of Muslim minorities as it emphasizes a shared interest of Chinese and Arab autocrats in the subjugation of potentially threatening populations. Indeed, Muhammad bin Salman emphasized Chinas right to carry out anti-terrorism and de-extremisation work in reference to the countrys crackdown on ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region.

Still, there has been some leeway for Saudis to criticize Chinas handling of the pandemic, particularly on social media, but only when it avoids religious interpretations of Chinas culpability. Several Saudi individuals have reportedly been arrested for the kind of divine-punishment explanations that led some in the Arab world to argue that Chinas affliction with the virus results from its governments mistreatment of Muslim minorities.

Saudi businessman Hussein Shobokshi faced no repercussions, however, for predicting that China would face difficult times in being held accountable for the pandemic. Another Twitter influencer, who initially hyped conspiracies of biological warfare being responsible for the virus, charged China with being a threat to the health of the world in a racialized attack.

Authoritarian Admiration

The bulk of Saudi commentary in March, however, was not shy about identifying the authoritarianism of the Chinese regime and, by extension, the harsh measures taken by Saudi Arabias absolute monarchy as a decisive factor in effective COVID-19 responses. Saudi columnists for a more nationalist daily, Okaz a platform known for frequent conspiratorial accusations along with occasional (and extremely subtle) critiques of state policy lauded the Chinese response for, among other factors, being free of political quarrels and partisan controversy. Others noted that Beijings evidently successful management of the crisis lent credibility to Chinas efforts at garnering soft power in the region.

These comparisons (largely sidestepping successful responses in democracies like Germany, Japan, or South Korea) feed into a regular line of Saudi commentary criticism of Western notions of human rights and political freedoms. Salman al-Dosary argued that Western democracies ineffective responses to COVID-19 was a function of their inability to limit citizens freedoms, stating, The world has discovered that the same principles that protect public freedoms are the same ones that stand unable to protect lives. European nations have come under particular criticism, with Okaz writer Hamood Abu Taleb accusing the states of the old continent of suffering from a different terminal illness resting on their laurels rather than striving to address new social challenges.

Some of Okazs columnists have even adopted the fringe conspiracies popular on Chinese social media, such as the idea that Italy rather than China is the true source of the COVID-19 outbreak. What if it is proven beyond any doubt that COVID-19 is not from China, but that China simply discovered it and helped the world to confront it? Will anyone doubt that China will then be the leader of a new world? opined Hani al-Dhaheri, one of the papers most pugnacious writers.

These media narratives have no doubt been helped along by an effective Chinese public-relations campaign, including collaborations between the China Media Group and outlets across the Arabic-speaking world. Chinas ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chen Weiqing, has been active on Twitter, promoting Saudi-Chinese solidarity and highlighting instances of Saudi-Chinese medical collaboration to understand and contain the virus. The ambassador has also drawn attention to his Arabic-language appearances on Saudi television shows to explain the Chinese governments COVID-19 response.

In print media, the consul general of China in Jeddah, Tan Banglin, listed off Chinas efforts to contain the virus in an Okaz op-ed, while criticizing those who have wasted time smearing the reputation of China. Ambassador Chen gave an interview to the more established Al-Riyadh, emphasizing the importance of trade ties with the kingdom and highlighting Chinas efforts to assist in combatting the virus around the world.

This messaging comes against a backdrop of limited but meaningful cooperation between China and Saudi Arabia with regards to COVID-19, as was seen with Saudi Arabia sending a shipment of aid to Wuhan, China (the epicenter of the outbreak) in early March. At the same time, the Chinese ambassador to Saudi Arabia was meeting with the Gulf Cooperation Council to share some of the Chinese governments accumulated knowledge about the virus. Saudi Arabia also took part in a video conference between Chinese health officials and their counterparts across the Middle East and North Africa.

Whither the United States?

By contrast, U.S.-Saudi cooperation in response to the pandemic appears to have been almost nonexistent. Washingtons primary concern in the bilateral relationship appears to be the falling price of oil. Trumps priority with respect to the kingdom has been to pressure Saudi leaders to rescue U.S. shale producers from low oil prices, either through unilateral cuts or in cooperation with other producers. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has only mentioned the pandemic in passing before pressing Saudi counterparts on the importance of stabilizing global energy markets. The United States has even undermined Saudi efforts to coordinate greater support for the World Health Organization via the G-20 (which the kingdom currently heads), with Trump suspending payments to the World Health Organization outright.

Washington has largely been spared Saudi criticism, official or otherwise, because of an effective cordon sanitaire in Saudi media around the Trump administration. Saudi authorities are likely aware that they will never deal with a more favorable U.S. leader than Trump, who has consistently blocked or blunted U.S. domestic criticisms of Riyadh. In particular, Trump has wielded presidential vetoes to defend arms sales to the Saudi Arabia against bipartisan legislation, going against Congress and an American public deeply skeptical of arms sales abroad. Saudi officials lobbying for Washington are also unlikely to find a more cooperative counterpart than the presidents advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

While few have gone as far as Muhammad al-Said in predicting that Trump will emerge from the crisis as the Abraham Lincoln of the age, most Saudi commentators have shied away from suggesting that his administration might be to blame for the course of the pandemic in the United States. Abdelrahman al-Rashed excused the slow U.S. response on the basis of the limited power of the federal state, while sympathizing with right-wing conspiracy theories in the United States that much of the suffering caused by the virus is a hoax aimed at attacking Trump.

Even in a sympathetic media environment, American efforts at public outreach reflect a persistent underinvestment in its diplomatic capacity compared with Chinese policies. Messaging out of the U.S. embassy in Riyadh has centered around rote repetition of centrally produced content, such as tweeting out an article highlighting the efforts of American distilleries to combat COVID-19 to followers in the nominally dry kingdom. Filling positions that require advanced Arabic-language skills is a constant struggle, making engagement with local media outlets an uphill battle; the U.S. ambassador to Riyadh has thus far only conducted one short interview (even shorter on specifics) with Okaz. This contrasts with a heavy emphasis on regional and language expertise in the Chinese diplomatic corps.

Narratives Without Works Are Useless

Some analysts, like the Hudson Institutes John Lee, have stressed that this war of narratives is where the United States needs to focus in attention to maintain its standing on the international stage. Yet this underestimates how much U.S. credibility on this issue has been undercut by its failure to mount an effective response at home and abroad. Other experts, like Jonathan Fulton of Zayed University, have argued that Chinas effective messaging and outreach have raised its standing among the Gulf monarchies. This is true to an extent, but it overestimates the credibility of Chinese messaging amid new revelations of its COVID-19 obfuscations.

Commentary in Saudi Arabia exposes the folly of official American messaging on COVID-19, which focuses on pinning the blame for the pandemic on China. American criticism of Beijing rings hollow given the obvious failure of the U.S. government to marshal an effective pandemic response within its own borders. For one, Chinas initial messaging was rendered credible by its past track-record of state-led development. Perhaps the successes declared by China are exaggerated or government propaganda, Abdelrahman al-Rashed conceded on March 30, but the numbers of its achievements in a decade and a half do not lie. At the same time, Chinas own failings have attracted increasing attention in all but Saudi Arabias most avowedly pro-China outlets. Articles in Okaz have increasingly highlighted Chinas manipulation of COVID-19 statistics; Abeer al-Fawzan accused China of attacking the whole world and Tariq al-Hamid referenced doubts about [Chinas] credibility in respective op-eds.

Furthermore, even as China falters in its efforts to make soft-power inroads with like-minded autocracies like the Gulf monarchies, the United States will not automatically benefit. Saudi commentators are certainly aware of the Trump administrations efforts to brand COVID-19 as the China virus, but strategic communications in the absence of concrete action damages American credibility. On social media, the amplified news of the medical achievements and successes from China is matched by a deliberate smear campaign from the United States, observed Abdelrahman al-Rashed in Al-Sharq al-Aawsat.

Al-Riyadh, probably the most pro-China of Saudi outlets, made no mention of China in a recent editorial on decisive responses to the pandemic. Yet it all but mocked Trump and Pompeo for contenting themselves [in their COVID-19 response] with calling the epidemic the Chinese virus rather than giving the crisis the attention it deserved. Likewise, Al-Sharq al-Aawsat afforded Hussein Shobokshi space to further criticize Chinas response, which he compared with the successful democratic model of the Republic of China (no mention of the United States).

Regardless of Chinas actions, U.S. domestic failures and an underwhelming diplomatic response the pandemic only reinforce the idea that the United States is both unwilling to provide a semblance of global leadership and unable to set much of an example for other countries to follow. The West has not shown a itself as a shining example of conduct towards the virus, noted former Saudi intelligence director Turki al-Faisal in an interview published April 5. Nor have China, Russia, and Iran.

A New Approach?

Instead of engaging in a war of words with China, the United States should improve its domestic response to the pandemic and find new ways to deepen international cooperation. At a minimum, regaining the standing to offer credible advice or criticism about the COVID-19 pandemic requires a more effective U.S. response domestically. Foreign audiences are likely to see efforts to cast blame on China as a way to deflect attention from the denial and dysfunction that has plagued the Trump administrations response to COVID-19.

For now, though, policymakers concerned with shoring up U.S. foreign relations with key states like Saudi Arabia should start with small efforts towards cooperation at the margins convening information sessions with U.S. health experts, for example, or finding new ways to support global academic and cultural exchange. Chinas support for Saudi Arabia amid the COVID-19 virus has been quite limited, yet it compares favorably with the practically nonexistent U.S. engagement. Unfortunately, the Trump administrations recent decision to defund the World Health Organization suggests that the diplomatic dimension of Washingtons pandemic response may get worse before it gets better.

Andrew Leber is a PhD candidate at Harvard Universitys Department of Government, where he researches Saudi policymaking in labor-market reform and regional development. He is on Twitter at @AndrewMLeber and occasionally blogs about Saudi media at The Bitter Lake.

Image: Saudi Press Agency

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China and COVID-19 in Saudi Media - War on the Rocks