King Abdullah II is in Beijing this week, his first visit to China since 2015. The instinct in Washington will be to treat that as a warning sign: a treaty ally’s king courting Xi Jinping, right as commentators reach for words like “hedge” and “pivot.”

The honest answer to whether Washington should care is: a little, but not for that reason. Jordan isn’t choosing sides. It’s shopping for things the United States doesn’t sell.