Saudi-China Economic Cooperation Relations

The global economic and political scene is rapidly changing, with new strong economies being created every period, and new economic and political ties between various countries being formed. One particularly interesting such cooperation is the Saudi-China relation. The reason why this unity is a center stage for contemporary interest is due to the two countries’unique positions in the current global economic times-with Saudi Arabia bearing the world’s largest oil reserves and China being one of the most rapidly growing world economies as well as the second largest country by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) after US. It is important to explore the details of the union between the two regions as a perfect representation of modern day global economy, as well as for the purpose of exploring the future of two of the most economically important topics today-the oil industry and China’s emerging dominance in the world market today.Owing to the young nature of the relationship-at least in the public domain, there exists very limited research in the Saudi-China economic relations. A study that sheds some light into China’s deviation from the western hegemony, as well as the situation of Saudi Arabia in the petro-dollar system is an important part of modern day economic studies. The most robust period in this cooperation is the period1990to2010, which marked a paradigm shift both the world’s view of China (mainly due to China’s position on the GDP scale) as well as major changes in the world oil industry. There are opportunities, threats, weaknesses and strengths in the relationship, both internal and external. This paper will discuss in depth the nature of Saudi-China economic and political relationships with a special focus in the two decades between1990and2010.