Xi is in Saudi Arabia to try to stimulate the economy.

This week, Chinese President Xi Jinping is in Saudi Arabia for two regional summits as part of his efforts to stimulate economic growth stifled by stringent anti-COVID-19 policies.

The Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday that Xi will go to the Saudi capital of Riyad to participate in the first China-Arab States Summit and meet with the heads of the six member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council. His official trip to Saudi Arabia ends this coming Saturday.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters at a daily briefing on Wednesday that Xi's attendance at the China-Arab States Summit is the "largest and highest-level diplomatic event between China and the Arab world since the founding of the People's Republic of China and will become an epoch-making milestone in the history of China-Arab relations."

During the summit, China intends to "help build more strategic common understandings on critical regional and international issues... and defend multilateralism," as Mao put it.

The final seems to refer to China's efforts to challenge the U.S.-dominated international order by forming an alliance with states unfriendly to the U.S., such as Russia, Iran, and others.

In light of Xi's trademark "Belt and Road Initiative" and the more recent "Global Development Initiative," China's position as the world's second-largest economy and a key source of outbound investment has never been clearer. These initiatives plan to significantly expand Beijing's sway in the developing world by having Chinese corporations construct and finance roads, power plants, ports, and other infrastructure across Asia and beyond.

Many of the initiatives have been criticized for being unrealistic, expensive, and out of reach for the primarily developing countries who are doing them.

Due to its enormous energy needs, China imports around half of its oil. Half of these imports come from Saudi Arabia, costing tens of billions of dollars yearly.

The rolling lockdowns implemented across China as a response to the COVID-19 epidemic were a huge blow to the country's already faltering economic growth.

Chinese economic growth picked up to 3.9% from 2.2% in the first half of the year in the three months ending in September, although this is still significantly behind the government's aim of 6%.

On Wednesday, China announced new measures to ease some of the country's strictest anti-COVID-19 restrictions, such as reducing the number of mandatory lockdowns and allowing schools with no confirmed cases of the virus to resume regular operations.

To avoid criticism for its treatment of the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, Beijing can point to the authoritarian inclinations shared by the Communist Party of China and the Gulf governments. More than a million people have been detained and many of them say they were coerced into denying their faith in Islam and swearing allegiance to Xi and the party.

Beijing refutes these claims, saying it has been training Muslims for jobs and eliminating extremist, separatist, and terrorist ideologies.

Since there are no big disagreements on human rights between China and Saudi Arabia, the political risk consultant Eurasia Group predicts that Xi's visit will have a "far more positive" tone than U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's earlier this year.

"However, there remains more work to be done if the relationship is ever to become as deep and sophisticated as Saudi-US relationships," the research cautions.

Even though Vice President Joe Biden had previously stated his intention to hold Saudi Arabian leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman accountable for the murder of an American journalist, Biden's administration recently stated that the prince's high office should shield him from a lawsuit over his role in the murder. On Tuesday, the case was dropped by the federal judge who was hearing it in the United States.

The U.S. military has long protected Saudi Arabia from outside threats, and Saudi Arabia has kept oil prices stable around the world in return.

After spending the majority of the pandemic in China, Xi is making an effort to recover his worldwide stature, and a trip to Saudi Arabia is part of that effort. This trip will be Xi's third abroad excursion since the beginning of 2020.

This occurs as concerns rise about Xi's continued popularity in China, where he has silenced dissent and eliminated political opponents. Despite Xi being re-elected for a third five-year term as leader in October, the most significant public threat to his authority came last month with protests over his "zero-COVID" policies. These protests may have led to a softening of some measures.

Several Chinese enterprises, including construction firms and the telecoms giant Huawei, have become integral to Saudi Arabia's effort to modernize the country's infrastructure. In the defense industry, where Saudi Arabia has showed signs of turning away from its historic dependency on the U.S., further deals are expected to be struck during Xi's visit.

According to a report by the Eurasia Group, "the Saudi visit will allow Xi to be the center of attention and regional leaders will be open to the Chinese perspective." Beijing "will not overlook" the fact that "these meetings come under a backdrop of strained ties between Mideast capitals and Washington."