2022 is the world entering a new period of turbulence and change. I believe that many media will shift their focus from the Ukrainian battlefield in Europe to the China-Arab Summit held in the Middle East in the near future. On the eve of the first China-Arab Summit of Chinese leaders visiting Saudi , the first to complete the first order to cross-border RMB payment business with Arab countries in Yiwu, Zhejiang, China! There have been rumors; Saudi Arabia hopes to use this summit to expand economic and trade cooperation with China to the political level, and the two countries will strengthen cooperation in culture, economy, military, science and technology, including the oil RMB settlement issue that most people are looking forward to. This makes this milestone summit even more significant. As we all know, Saudi Arabia is a major member of the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Organization, and the oil exporting country "OPEC", and has a vital voice in the entire Middle East and Arab world countries.
Saudi Arabia used to be the closest ally of the United States in the Middle East region, and an important part of the hegemony of the United States' petrodollar dollar. As we all know, Saudi Arabia played a big role in ultimately winning the United States with Cold War . During the 1980s, during the 1980s, Saudi Arabia cooperated with the United States to increase oil production and lowered oil prices, causing the Soviet Union, which relied heavily on oil and other energy exports. In the end, the Soviet Union collapsed due to a significant reduction in the fiscal revenue of and the economic collapse. Therefore, many people also believe that the "behind the scenes" of 's collapse of the Soviet Union is Saudi Arabia. Is this kind of relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States very close and friendly? But the reality is that the conflict between Saudi Arabia and the United States is getting bigger and bigger, and even this year it rejected the United States' demand to increase oil production in order to suppress Russia. The conflict between the two countries has already come.
Saudi Arabia's economic structure is too single and fragile
Saudi Arabia, which has one quarter of the world's crude oil reserves, is a veritable "oil kingdom". Relying on selling oil, Saudi Arabia can "weak oil". But after all, as a non-renewable resource, 80% of Saudi Arabia's domestic economic source relies on oil exports, and many of its domestic economy can find "shadows" of oil, so Saudi Arabia has always wanted to create a non-oil economic market that does not rely heavily on the oil industry. But this is just Saudi Arabia's own unilateral idea. As its closest ally, the United States does not think so. The United States only wants to build Saudi Arabia into a pure oil exporting country that can match the interests of the petrodollar; therefore, Saudi Arabia, which relies on selling oil, must have a large amount of US dollars, and can only be used to purchase US Treasury bonds and conventional weapon . In this regard, both Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries such as , Qatar , which are holding the World Cup recently, have obvious ideas of achieving economic transformation and developing non-oil industries.
Saudi Arabia wants to achieve economic transformation and does not want to always become a country that relies on oil exports. It is not just because oil is a non-renewable resource or because of the Russian-Ukraine war. Western countries led by the United States have simply found an "excusation" to freeze a large number of Russian overseas assets that also rely on oil and other energy exports. This is the idea of "being prepared for danger in times of peace". In fact, as early as the early 21st century, the US shale oil technology began to make breakthroughs, and later entered a stage of rapid development. The increase in output not only made the United States independent of energy, but also ranked alongside Saudi Arabia and Russia as a major global crude oil exporter! And in 2016, Saudi Arabia and the United States launched a great battle for oil prices. In the end, both sides suffered both losses. Although the American companies that dominate shale oil suffered heavy losses, this price war that killed 1,000 enemies also caused Saudi Arabia, which had an economic structure too single, to suffer from the economic crisis ! The shale oil revolution in the United States has caused cracks in the foundation of US-Saudi relations, which has made Saudi Arabia more determined not to rely on single oil to maintain the status quo and needs to find a new path to develop.
Khashoggi's murder incident; the fuse that exacerbated the cracks in US-Saudi relations
The murder of Saudi-American journalist Khashoggi in 2018 has escalated the conflict between the United States and Saudi Arabia again! In 2015, Saudi old king Abdullah passed away. Adhering to the previous principle of inheriting the Saudi throne, Salman succeeded to the throne, and Salman was 79 years old.Salman, the oldest beloved son, happened to be a strong man with ideas and ambitions. Salman and his son joined forces to change the principle of "brothers and brothers" to "fathers and sons to succeed", and in 2017, Salman was appointed crown prince. The operation of the old Salman and his son must have hurt the interests of other people in the Saudi royal family. They thought that the Saudi royal family would have a bloody storm, but they did not expect that the young Salman took the initiative and launched a massive "anti-corruption campaign", which not only captured all the opposition forces in one place, but also essentially strengthened the control of Saudi Arabia!
Salman's "anti-corruption campaign" completed centralization of Saudi Arabia at a lightning speed. This not only touched the "cake" of other Saudi royal forces, but also was somewhat unfavorable to the United States' long-term infiltration of Saudi Arabia.
Khashoggi , who studied in the United States and became an American journalist, has been submitted to many American media outlets many times; criticizing the Saudi government's domestic and foreign policies. Khashoggi is not an ordinary journalist. Not only is Khashoggi a friend of the terror tycoon bin Laden, he was also a member of the Saudi underground organization "Muslim Brotherhood". Khashoggi's family is closely linked to the Saudi royal family. In , Turkish , the connections between the power families and American politicians are destined to be an ordinary "reporter". The US intelligence officer Khashoggi, dressed in the guise of a reporter, has mastered a lot of inside stories in Saudi Arabia's political arena, and his behavior of expressing doubts and exposing inside stories has angered the Saudi top leaders. In 2018, the famous war correspondent of Afghanistan "anti-Soviet army invasion" and 59-year-old Saudi Khashoggi entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey to go through the marriage procedures, and since then he mysteriously "disappeared". It is said that he was dismembered alive and died cruelly.
Saudi-American "Reporter" - Khashoggi
His death shocked the world and alarmed the United Nations. UN Secretary-General Guterres "deeply uneasy" about Khashoggi's death in the consulate, saying that it is necessary to conduct a quick, thorough and transparent investigation into Hashoggi's death and hold those responsible accountable. Although the murder of Khashoggi nakedly challenged the values of the United States and the West, the United States did not point too much at Saudi Arabia, nor did it dare to wave the sanctions stick, even the US president at that time; after taking office, Trump , he gave his first state visit to Saudi Arabia and imposed sanctions on Saudi Arabia's mortal enemy, Iran. From now on, Trump, who stabilized the basic US position in the Middle East and was even detained for "Russia", has very clear governance goals; the target of the United States' focus on suppression is in the East. As a result, the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia began to ease... But as the US party struggle has entered a "white-hot" in recent years, we adhere to the correct political ideas that you support and oppose me. The donkey party of the United States became president.
After Biden took office, he immediately removed the Yemeni Houthi militant group that often attacked Saudi Arabia from the blacklist of terrorist organizations. He even wanted to overturn Trump's previous policies, reconcile with Iran, and return to the Iran nuclear negotiations and relax sanctions on Iran's oil. He also called Saudi Arabia a "untouchable country" many times in public. Biden's behavior of completely ignoring Saudi Arabia's interests and feelings hit Saudi Arabia's pain points. Saudi Arabia's dissatisfaction suddenly broke out; policies began to be adjusted, such as dialogue with Iran alone and strengthening cooperation with Russia, etc. After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the energy crisis exacerbated the inflation in the United States
. In order to US midterm election , Biden, who was almost 80 years old, personally went to the Middle East to let Saudi Arabia increase production and help suppress inflation and increase election chips. As a result, he got a very insulting result of an increase of 100,000 barrels of oil per day. You should know that the global oil production is about 100 million barrels per day. Moreover, the 100,000 barrels of oil that was dropped from this drop in the bucket was withdrawn by Saudi Arabia in less than a month. Instead, it decided to start a significant reduction in production from November 2022, with an average daily cut of 2 million barrels. Saudi Arabia's move is tantamount to adding fuel to the high inflation of the United States and its European allies.Of course, Saudi Arabia also gave a reasonable explanation: the production cut is because the slowdown in the global economic growth rate of , resulting in the shrinking of oil demand, so production cuts are needed!
Biden and Salman Jr.
The United States is unwilling to give to Saudi Arabia; China is willing to help
As we all know, Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian country that implements tribal alliances. It has great errors with the United States and Western countries in terms of values, ideology, etc., and can even be said to be on the opposite side of the United States and Western countries. Being able to maintain good relations with the United States and Western countries is nothing more than based on oil interests and other aspects. After the United States' energy independence, it not only has conflicts of interest with Saudi Arabia, but its value to the United States is also gradually decreasing. This forces Saudi Arabia to be more "benefiting from danger" to transform its economy. In 2016, Salman Jr. proposed to use his unique geographical location to build Saudi Arabia into a "Saudi Vision 2030" plan that provides a fulfilling and healthy life, promotes economic diversification, increases employment, increases government efficiency, and fulfills social responsibilities. Simply put, Saudi Arabia wants to change its backward national structure; vigorously promote the development of non-oil economic enterprises and expand economic competitiveness, and build Saudi Arabia into a modern center of the Arab world.
Saudi Arabia wants to become a modern country with diversified economic and industrial development; the United States is definitely not willing to do so. This is not because the United States does not have the ability to help Saudi Arabia transform into a modern country with diversified economic and industrial development, but the United States not only needs Saudi Arabia to cooperate in the petrodollar dollar, but also needs Saudi Arabia to hold two Islam holy cities to complete the export of the "Wahabie" ideology! Muslim countries that mess up Eurasia and Africa! The "Saudi 2030 Vision" proposed by Salman Jr. is to stop ideological output, focus on internal development, and achieve national transformation and upgrading. This is also the reason for the increasing conflict between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia chose to deepen cooperation with China not only because China and other countries cooperate with economic and trade fields, defense and security fields without any political conditions, nor will it change the security situation in the region. It is a mutually beneficial and win-win situation! It can also allow Saudi Arabia to offset some potential economic, security and other threats from the United States and its allies to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has also used its unique geographical location to link Asia, Europe and Africa to actively respond to the proposal of the "Belt and Road" and deepen cooperation with China. Therefore, in recent years, Saudi Arabia has successively obtained China's "Winglong" and "Rainbow" drone production lines. If Saudi Arabia wants to enter a rapid transformation, it requires China's manufacturing industry and relatively mature economic operation model experience! Of course, the United States will not give up. Although Salman Jr.'s status in China has become increasingly stable after several years of centralization, it is not so easy for the United States to use "old tricks" to block Saudi Arabia's transformation! Unless the United States adopts more special and extreme measures. Therefore, in the future, China-Saudi cooperation will definitely increase prevention in terms of economy, security, etc.!
