While im no fan of Saudi Arabia, I wouldn’t go calling this pandering. China has long considered the West an enemy, and has been an abusive trading partner. It’s high time the UK stands up for itself.

this is projection - the hostility is pretty much one way from West to East. You can even see when the mood changed, post GFC, when China stopped buying US T-bills

Abusive trading partner in the strict sense of goods trading, not sure. But China requires or used to require (some / interesting / all?) foreign countries operating in the country to create joint ventures with Chinese companies. Probably done to transfer know-how, possibly profits, and to keep control. Volkswagen had the foresight to enter China early (as it did decades earlier in Brazil), and it had to do that.

protectionism of this sort is basically how all the East Asian tigers developed from being as impoverished as Africa in 1950's to where they all are now. It's a problem now because the unbroken period of 400 years + pf Western hegemony might finally be under challenge by a country who is big enough not routinely bend the knee

*foreign companies