President Hu in Riyadh

China’s President Hu Jintao visited Riyadh last week. It was his second visit in three years. This is a big story, right? Perhaps. It depends on where you are.

I was in New York and the story didn’t rate a mention. Instead, the economic crisis has, not surprisingly, gripped the city’s attention.

The story, however, was big news in China and Saudi Arabia. Sina.com, a leading Chinese news portal, created a special feature for the visit with links to commentary and background information (in the same way CNN might create a special feature for the Gaza crisis). Al Hayat, a major Arabic newspaper, meanwhile devoted its entire second-page to the meeting between President Hu and King Abdullah.

So what was the outcome of President Hu’s visit? There was the usual photo opportunities and talk of mutual strategic interests. But the more important implications were not evident in the meeting itself.

President Hu, after he leaves Saudi Arabia, will travel onwards to Mali, Senegal, Tanzania, and Mauritius. To many observers it’s an odd collection of countries. Yet China views the Middle East as a bridge to Africa. Why? The Middle East not only geographically straddles Asia and Africa, but it also plays an important role in the transit of people, goods, and services.

Take the China Construction Bank, now one of the world’s largest banks. It set up offices in Dubai last year in order to serve mainly Chinese construction companies operating in Africa.

Indeed, there’s a clear pattern emerging. Find a world map. Take a red marker and highlight the countries in which China’s foreign influence is growing. Hong Kong, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Mali, and Senegal are just a few of the likely candidates. The result would be a large block of red stretching from Asia through to Africa.

It’s also wrong to focus on President Hu’s visit alone. Less well observed was the visit by Li Keqiang to Kuwait in late December. Li, who has a Phd in economics, will likely succeed Wen Jiabao as Prime Minister in 2012. His succession isn’t guaranteed, so Li wouldn’t be wasting time on junket trips abroad if the trips didn’t have strategic value. And Kuwait definitely makes it to the list of countries of strategic value.

It’s also striking that two of China’s top leaders are visiting the Middle East in spite of the fact that China’s economy has slowed to its weakest rate of growth since 2001, a reported 20 million unemployed migrant workers are heading home to their villages, and eight of the country’s major wheat producing provinces are suffering from the worst drought in fifty years.

This is an important statement of intent. How so? It sends the message that China views its foreign relations as important enough to spend political capital on, even as the country suffers its greatest economic challenge in a decade.

But it’s not just the economics that matter. Hu’s visit has offers an opportunity to watch China’s media in action. The country’s two main news agencies, Xinhua and the People’s Daily, reported the visit, in Arabic. It’s a little known fact that China has a large number of Arabic-speaking, and writing, specialists. The government uses them to spin the country’s message to the Arab world.

I wouldn’t want to overstate the ability of China’s media. But its emphasis on public diplomacy is an important recognition that economic and military power isn’t everything. And I expect the emphasis on public diplomacy to grow as the government plans to spend $7bn on expanding the state media’s global presence. Watch out for a Chinese-style ‘Al Jazeera’.

It’s public diplomacy 101. Even as the Obama administration attempts to rebuild America’s reputation in the Middle East, it faces greater competition from China in the region than it did a decade ago.

And so, while I have little doubt that the economic crisis will reshape the global economic balance, I’m also starting to believe it might also help to reshape the global political balance. But you won’t read about this in the English-language media. It’s worth paying attention to what Sina.com and Al Hayat have to say about the state of global affairs.