Economic Interactions between China and Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia and Iran are two countries that sit on opposite sides of the Sunni/Shiite divide, which can be argued as being the most prominent issue the Middle East faces today. Saudi Arabia is predominantly known to be a Sunni state, while Iran is largely inhabited by Shia Muslims. Both countries aspire to be the hegemonic powers of the region. Ethnically, Iran is known to be a Persian land, unlike Saudi Arabia that is known to be in the heart of the Arab world. These two countries are separated by the Arabian Gulf and throughout the twentieth century and up until today, the relationship between the two countries has been notoriously contentious. Within the past few years especially relationships between the two states have been very fragile with Saudi Arabia ending diplomatic ties early in 2016. The two states are strained over many issues of which are, interpretations of Islam, oil export policy and hegemonic regional leadership.

Two-thirds of the world’s remaining oil reserves are in the Middle East which will make international policy imperative in the future (Campbell 2007). It is

The chapter by Manabu Shimizu focuses on Japan’s efforts in oil exploration and the country’s future goals in the oil industry. Since Japan imports all of its oil, the “challenge is to establish a long-term, sustainable oil supply” (Shimizu 113). Japan has begun to fund Central Asian oil exploration in the hopes of a big oil market being produced for that region. However, Japan does not intend to import oil from Central Asia, rather they want other regions to do import. By doing so, some of the production pressure is lifted from the Middle East, which is where most of Japan’s oil comes from. At the moment, the Middle East is the main producer of oil for many countries with great power over the market, and Japan hopes to create another market

The term globalization can be defined as a process by which societies, regional economies and cultures have been integrated via a global network of transportation, communication and trade. It has both positive and negative impacts in all the areas that it touches on be it economical, social, technology, cultural, political, environment, health or any other. Globalization started to have an impact on businesses world wide in the eighteenth century since that time marks the merging of modernity and globalization. However, in the modern sence, globalization kicked off after the end of Second World War since its during that time that leaders felt the urge to break down the borders

Our nation now imports nearly half the oil it consumes and could face a major threat to its economic independence. The sovereign independence of Saudi Arabia is of vital interest to the United States.

The United States relationship with Saudi Arabia is one that begun on February 14, 1945 when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt met King Al-Saud at the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal. After World War II the United States became the most influential foreign power in Saudi Arabia. US’s main interest was focused in the direction of the oil industry. Then in 1960 Saudi Arabia was one of the main driving forces in the creation of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). During the Cold War, Saudis favored the United States while the two also continued to but heads over the issue concerning the ever present Israeli-Arab conflict. Americas constant support for Israel has, and will continue to be an issue that brings about confrontation between the Saudis and the United States. Foreign relation ties never were as intense as they were during the Persian Gulf War. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait posed a potential threat to the Saudis provoking the United States to intervene. The Saudis allowed the United States to have access to their bases during this time. Since that time, our troops have remained there which is something that has led to much controversy because many Islamist believe that we our occupying their holy land. This has sparked many extremist to take action, most notably Osama Bin Laden who used this reasoning to justify the horrors of 9/11. Post 9/11 opened a new chapter to US-Saudi

Japan and China have been in cold relations ever since the end of World War II. After the war, there was barely any diplomacy to bring together their relation. Not until 1972 Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka of Japan visited China with an official invitation. At the scene, both sides were willing for reconciliation and normalization, result with the Joint Communique between two governments. From that moment on, the (economic) relations of the two nations has been reestablished, encouraged and developed rapidly (China, Japan Joint Communique, 1972). There is an opinion that China’s incredible (economic) developing rate has greatly influenced Japan diplomatic with Beijing since that time. And this essay is going to support this argument with data as well as historical and contemporary context. First, energy requirement is usually critical to the development and modernization of China and the stabilization of Japan. Therefore, variables that related to it can influence both countries’ economic interest, lead to the consideration of policy makers. It is clear that both countries were in need of developing their gas and oil fields. Second, Japanese engagement into China market have changed a lot - Japanese companies and corporations were having decreasing influence on the economy of the client country - led to the need of adjusting investment policies within the government body. Third, China is modernizing and in many ways will be able to surpass Japan in near future. Therefore

Conflict over energy resources—and the wealth and power they create—has become an increasingly prominent feature for geopolitics particularly in the Middle East . The discovery of oil in the late nineteenth century added a dimension to the region as major outside states powers employed military force to protect their newly acquired interests in the Middle East. The U.S.’s efforts to secure the flow of oil have led to ever increasing involvement in the Middle East region’s political affairs and ongoing power struggles. By the end of the twentieth century, safeguarding the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf had become one of the most important functions of the U.S. military establishment. The close relationship between the United States and the Saudi royal family was formed in the final months of World War II, when U.S. leaders sought to ensure preferential access to Saudi petroleum. The U.S. link with Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region has demonstrated to be greatly beneficial to both parties, yet it has also led to ever deepening U.S. involvement in regional politics.

The United States is the largest import of oil, which produces over 10 million barrels of oil each day. That a lot of oil that they are producing in my opinion. As the years have passed by we have gotten oil for our foreign country this happen in the Gulf War. We also need oil from other countries so in all reality we have to reserve all the oil that we get and make sure we keep up the rapport that we have with the other countries in order to keep the United States out of finically situations. In all we have to be safe about who we deal with and how we react, because we don’t want to cause any infractions with other people or countries and then have to pay for what we have done. “Even as Saudi Arabia diverges from U.S. foreign policy objectives

Another country like Saudi Arabia with vast amounts of oil is Iraq. However Iraq is not just about the oil. It is also about water ways and geopolitics. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers flows through Iraq. Giving Iraq the majority of control of the water resource. Iraq’s location is also desirable to the United States. It borders Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey. It also has a coast line of the Persian gulf. Their location is also missile sticking distance to Israel and the USSR. Controlling Iraq gives the United States the ability in “controlling” the Middle East. However the United States was not able to coerced Iraq into being a pawn. Saddam Hussein refused the proposals of the economic hit-man. For Saddam Hussein, this was the begin of his demise.

mutually beneficial, a dependency on Iranian oil for Beijing’s policy decisions vanished and can no longer be used as a valid argument to analyze China’s decision-making process from 2004 until the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as authors such as Dorraj and Currier or Kozhanov did.

Saudi Arabia has an economy that is largely dependent on oil, with the government maintaining the biggest control over the country 's significant economic activities. Saudi Arabia owns about 16% of the global oil reserves and is the number one exporter of oil (Saudi Arabia, 2013). In addition, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was instrumental in the formation of the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) group, which initially comprised Iraq, Venezuela, Iran, Kuwait and Venezuela (Energy indicators, 2004). Currently, the petroleum industry constitutes about 80% of the country 's budgetary incomes; about 40% of the country 's GDP and 87% of Saudi 's export earnings. Agriculture, in addition to petroleum products, has been a major contributor to the kingdom’s economy since 1970s (Saudi Arabia, 2013). The country has been able to produce enough agricultural products for their consumption as well as surplus for exportation to the GCC member countries.

Dr. Coenen’s lectures corrected a lot of myths and misconceptions I had about the environment and our countries fossil fuel usage. My notes from Lecture 6 are easily the most detailed, as I really was surprised with the economics side of it. The idea that natural gas is cheaper than coal was unknown to me until then, and to think that there are even cheaper renewable options really got me thinking about the current state of the economy and when the big push for renewables will come into focus. With 16% of oil reserves in Saudi Arabia, that fact alone can be used to explain their economy. I’ve always been fascinated with the sheer amount of wealth in Saudi Arabia, as it’s one country I hope to work in one day. So I took it upon myself to take a closer look at the country, finding that industry executives and analysts gave an estimated $400 billion dollar evaluation to their oil industry,

Saudi Arabia has an oil-based economy. Shipments of oil account for 87 percent of total exports and for 46 percent of GDP. In recent years, in order to diversify the economy, the government has been investing in telecommunications, petrochemicals, natural gas exploitation and power generation sectors.

To meet China's fast rising energy demands, Chinese leaders exerted great effort with a market-oriented approach and a state-centered approach. The market-oriented approach look for energy safety by better assimilation of national and international markets …state intervention would be restricted to the dispersal of data in a multilateral context, the help of innovation, and, for few management of a strategic oil reserve which would be applied in case of fleeting supply interruption.