Mar.
2019
It was not clear that which side offered the telephone talks
primarily and what kind of atmosphere it was. However, the latest articles in
local newspapers show that the isolated MbS at home and abroad is now quite
irresistible. It could be found that MbS is looking for the chance of recovery by
the telephone call with Prime Minister Abe. The following is a guess by the
author after analyzing the article of the local newspapers.
About the question which side the meeting was proposed from Japan
or Saudi Arabia, Saudi local newspaper reported that "Crown Prince
received the call from Prime Minister Abe". It can be read as if the
Japanese side proposed the telephone call ahead of Saudi Arabia. But Prime
Minister Abe so far had no urgent problems to confer with Saudi leaders (except
if there were any confidential subject which the Foreign Ministry could not
disclose). On the other hand, MbS has been isolated and without support from
international arena due to the Khashoggi case. Incidentally he could achieve no
remarkable results from the visits to India and China just performed few weeks
ago[4]. His vision
2030, too big to materialize, began to show its defects. It seems to be true
that MbS is considerably impatient now. Taking the situation into
consideration, it would be natural to think that telephone call was offered from
MbS side to ask cooperation of Japan.
Currently MbS's biggest concern is Vision 2030. The path to realize
the target cannot be found out. Original timetable is completely in delay. For
instance, Saudi Aramco's IPO, which is inevitable to fund the Vision 2030, is
also postponed two years later without specific schedule[5]. Furthermore,
foreign investment and technology transfer, which are essential to diversify
economy and to upgrade domestic industry, have hardly been realized.
There are two reasons that foreign investors hesitate to invest in
Saudi Arabia. One reason is that MbS arrested and detained his political
opponents and influential businessmen in November 2017. He arrested them in the
name of corruption. As a result, most of businessmen in Saudi Arabia have
become wary of MbS. The second reason is the Khashoggi’s murder case in last October.
Both public and private sector in international society is convinced that MbS
was directly involved in the case. Due to these reasons, foreign investors
cannot accelerate their business in Saudi Arabia. They are afraid that their
government, shareholders and consumers do not appreciate their investment in
Saudi Arabia. The avoidance of MbS at home and abroad is steaming up.
His official visits to India and China seemed to have failed in
terms of attracting money and technology for Vision 2030. Both countries strongly
need Saudi oil. So bilateral energy relations have been strengthened in agreements
to establish a refinery joint venture[6]. However,
nothing has been realized manufacturing projects with Indian firms or
infrastructure projects with Chinese entity in Saudi Arabia. The latter is
related to China's "One-Belt-One-Road Initiative" MbS had been reported
to visit Korea and two other Southeast Asian countries in addition to India and
China[7]. But
it seemed to be cancelled. MbS might judge that no fruits could be get by these
additional visits. MbS is a person who has pay little respect to the
counterparts. He is always selfish.
MbS has lost his reputation in the diplomatic scene due to his
selfish and arrogant behavior in the Kashoggi’s case. When he attended the
Buenos Aires G20 Summit in December last year, he had very few individual
meetings with Western leaders. And at the first EU-Arab Summit in Cairo, Egypt,
in February this year, King Salman attended the meeting[8]. For
this meeting, MbS would be the most appropriate person to participate as the representative
of the Kingdom. German Prime Minister Merkel is the spearhead of anti-MbS. She stopped
exporting weapons such as tanks for Saudi Arabia immediately after the Kashoggi’s
case. She had no meeting with MbS at G20.
King Salman himself, who is fond of one-on-one negotiations, is
not good at summit of multilateral diplomacy. The King had very weak presence at
EU-Arab Summit. The King had to expect that MbS stood on the stage of the Summit
as his representative. But King himself had to participate to Summit despite
his bad health condition because reputation of MbS was too bad. King Salman,
who could not entrust MbS on diplomacy, replaced the foreign minister from Al-Jubeir
who was obedient subordinates of MbS to veteran ex-finance minister Assaf[9]. In
the tour to India and China MbS focused his aim to the deal in the economic
field. But as stated earlier, Vision 2030 showed a lack of momentum regardless
his visit to both countries.
The scenario of MbS was summarized as follows; MbS eventually
relied on Japanese prime minister who could not say "no" to Saudi
Arabia as a crude oil supplier. On the economic side, MbS asked Japan to encourage
specific actions for Vision 2030. On the diplomatic side, at the upcoming Osaka
G20 Summit in June, he expects that Prime Minister Abe will introduce him to
the Western leaders as the host of next year’s Summit. The soul of MbS is seen
through.
Your comment on this matter would
be highly appreciated.
By Areha Kazuya
E-mail: Arehakazuya1@gmail.com
[2] ‘Saudi crown prince receives
telephone call from Japan's Shinzo Abe`, 2019/3/8, Arab News
[4] ‘Future opportunities between Saudi Arabia and China are very big:
crown prince’ 2019/2/22, Arab News
[5] ‘Al-Falih confirms Saudi
Aramco IPO expected within two years’, 2019/3/7, Arab News
[6] ‘Future opportunities between Saudi Arabia and China are very big:
crown prince’ 2019/2/22, Arab News
[7] ‘Saudi Crown Prince starts
Asia trip pledging $20b for Pakistan ’ 2019/2/18, Gulf News
[8] ‘Arab, European leaders vow new era of cooperation’, 2019’,
2019/2/26, Arab News
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