This book focuses on the relationship established between China, the world’s second largest economy, and Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter. Due to Saudi Arabia’s dominance of the world oil market, China is increasingly focusing its attention on the Saudi Arabia as a reliable oil supplier while Saudi Arabia sees China as an enormous potential market and strategic trade partner. It investigates both countries’ motives for establishing a strategic relationship and outlines the potential for successful co-operation between them. It then goes on to address the wider implications for the United States in the Middle East.

Few issues in international affairs and energy security animate thinkers more than the classic topic of hegemony, and the case of the Persian Gulf presents particularly fertile ground for considering this concept. Since the 1970s, the region has undergone tumultuous changes, with dramatic shifts in the diplomatic, military, and economic roles of the United States, China, and Russia. In this book, Steve A. Yetiv and Katerina Oskarsson offer a panoramic study of hegemony and foreign powers in the Persian Gulf, offering the most comprehensive, data-driven portrait to date of their evolving relations. The authors argue that the United States has become hegemonic in the Persian Gulf, ultimately protecting oil security for the entire global economy. Through an analysis of official and unofficial diplomatic relations, trade statistics, military records, and more, they provide a detailed account of how U.S. hegemony and oil security have grown in tandem, as, simultaneously, China and Russia have increased their political and economic presence. The book sheds light on hegemony's complexities, and challenges and reveals how local variations in power will continue to shape the Persian Gulf in the future.

This book examines Sino-Middle Eastern relations on a bilateral level since World War II. It highlights the depth of China’s involvement in the region with each country on a five dimensional approach: energy security, trade relations, political relations, arms sales/security cooperation, and cultural relations. Regarding each of these criteria, the Middle East holds a strategic significance to China’s national security, vital interests, territorial integrity, sovereignty, regime survival, and economic prosperity. China has been an integral part of the political developments on the Middle Eastern political scene. It has supported the region’s quest for independence and national liberation, exchanged diplomatic recognition with the region and established political partnerships with the Middle East. Trade relations are an essential element of China’s involvement in the Middle East. Their bilateral trade volume exceeds $220 billion annually, and is steadily heading toward $500 billion by the end of 2015. The Middle East supplies fifty-four percent of China’s energy needs, and is expected to provide seventy percent of China’s imports by 2020. Energy security has become the core of Sino-Middle Eastern relations and the main goal of its increasing involvement in the region. China has also become a main source of arms sales to the region. The Middle East influenced Chinese culture and language immensely, simultaneously, influenced by Chinese culture, traditions and customs. Apparently, the peoples of the Middle East are enthusiastic about China’s role in the region. However, the American so called “pivoting out” and China’s imminent “pivoting in” brings tremendous levels of anxiety in the region. A similar situation occurred a century ago, when the people of the region, the social and political movements in the Middle East, and the governments of the region, solicited and welcomed the American involvement in the region, something they deeply resent and regret. China seems to be going through the same path, and the people of the region have begun to scrutinize its presence. If Beijing continues its inconsistent policy in the region, its injudicious support to autocracies, it will defiantly mobilize popular resentment against its involvement in the Middle East. Therefore, its presence might not endure in comparison to the American, British, or French presence in the Middle East.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) vision, heralded as an attempt to revive the pre-modern Silk Route, is intended to strengthen West Asia’s economic links with China through ambitious infrastructural projects. Central to this are fast-track rail links, funded by the newly-established Asia Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB), which has its headquarters in Beijing. This book explores the implications of OBOR and the AIIB for the Middle East/West Asia, and addresses a number of key strategic questions arising from China’s new initiatives. These include: how far are the strategic imperatives underpinning China’s policies connected to the political dynamics of Xinjiang and the spread of radical Islam in Central Asia? How are Middle Eastern stakeholders’ views of China affected by the new initiatives? How does China’s increasing involvement in the Middle East/West Asia affect other regional powers with ambitions in the region, notably Russia? The book also considers the impact of China’s increasing presence on individual countries, including Saudi Arabia and Israel.

As China’s international political role grows, its relations with states outside of its traditional sphere of interests is evolving. This is certainly the case of the Gulf monarchies of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, which together comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). China’s levels of interdependence with these states has increased dramatically in recent years, spanning a wide range of interests. What motivating factors explain the Chinese leadership’s decision to forge closer ties to the GCC? Why have GCC leaders developed closer ties to China, and what kind of role can China be expected to play in the region as levels of interdependence intensify? This book uses neoclassical realism to analyse the evolution of Sino-GCC relations. Examining the pressures that shaped China’s policy toward the Gulf monarchies, it demonstrates that systemic considerations have been predominant since 1949, yet domestic political considerations were also always an important consideration. Relations are examined across diplomatic and political interactions, trade and investment, infrastructure and construction projects, people-to-people exchanges, and military and security cooperation. This book will appeal to scholars in the fields of International Relations and International Political Economy, as well as area specialists on China, the Gulf, the Gulf Monarchies, and those working on foreign policy issues.

This book explores a range of key issues connected to China’s relations with countries in the Middle East and South Asia. It discusses economic and political connections, and projects which have arisen as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It covers both important countries in the Middle East, and also Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. It examines current contentious issues including Iranian sanctions and the war in Syria, and assesses the roles of other powers such as Russia, Turkey and Israel insofar as they affect China’s relationships. Overall, the book presents many new perspectives on the subject, with many of the perspectives representing the view from the countries of the Middle East and South Asia.

The remarkable performance of the Chinese economy in the last three decades has placed China at the centre of the world stage. In 1993, China became a net importer of energy, although it was not until the early 2000s that the world began to pay more attention to China’s energy needs and its potential impact on the world. With China’s energy search occurring within a hegemonic global structure dominated by the United States, the US watches with interest as China enhances its ties with energy-rich states. The book examines this triangular relationship and questions whether the US and China are in competition regarding access to the energy of a third state, within the context of a potential power transition. It includes case studies on China's energy relationship with countries such as Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Iran, Sudan and Venezuela and aims to understand the way a rising power interacts with the existing leading power and the possible outcome of this competition. The analytical framework employed helps the reader to understand not only the nature and pattern of triangles among US, China and the Resource Rich States under ‘resource diplomacy’, but also the salient features of US-China competition around the world. Making an impressive contribution to the literature in fields such as US-China relations, international relations, Chinese foreign policy and global energy geopolitics, this book will appeal to students and scholars of these subjects.