Saudi Relations In The Early 21st Century. Study

The People's Republic of China and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia formally established their diplomatic relations on 21st July, 1990. Although Saudi Arabia was the latest country in the Arabian world to establish its relation with China, rapid progress had been made in each filed of bilateral relations during the past 19 years. Especially after Sep. 11th 2001, the two countries got even closer. Economically, they have tightened their ties, and politically, they have established strategic partner relationship. The Sino-Saudi relationship has become a model in Sino-Arabian cooperation.The thesis will review the Sino-Saudi relations before and after the establishment of diplomatic relations in the 20th century, and analyze the reason why they just established their relations in 1990. The political, economic, cultural, scientific and technological, educational and military relations at the beginning of the 21st century between the two countries will also be analyzed, and from these analyses, we can see the development features of the two countries. The problems existing in Sino-Saudi relations will also be mentioned. There might be these negative factors in bilateral relations, but the mainstream of the relations is positive. Saudi is the world's largest oil reserve country as well as oil export country; China is the world's second largest oil consumption country as well as a stable oil market. This thesis will take the Sino-Saudi energy cooperation as an example to illustrate the strategic and mutually beneficial relations between the two countries, but the challenges and resolutions of the cooperation will also be mentioned. In the last chapter, we will look into the future of Sino-Saudi relations, and some suggestions will also be made for China to develop its relations with the oil-producing countries in the Middle East.