Efforts should be stepped up to seek a political solution to the crisis in Yemen, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Saudi Arabia's King Salman in a telephone call, China's Foreign Ministry said yesterday.

A Saudi-led coalition began an air campaign on March 25 after Yemen's Houthi rebels, who run most of the country, closed in on the southern port city of Aden and forced the Saudi-backed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour to flee to Riyadh.

China, a low-key diplomatic player in the Middle East despite its reliance on oil from the region, has previously expressed concern at the upsurge in violence in Yemen and called for a political solution.