China is “at the center of a clash between Saudi Arabia and Iran,” WSJ wrote on Tuesday, as Xi Jinping marks his first visit to Riyadh as President.
To be sure, Xi’s trip to the Mid-East comes at a critical juncture. The Sunni and Shiite communities exist in a perpetual state of strife, but Riyadh’s execution of prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr threw gasoline on a fire that’s already being fueled by fighting in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.