"Ever since the end of World War Two, the U.S. has come to regard Saudi Arabia as almost its exclusive oil producing enclave.
In February 1945, after the Yalta Conference with Soviet General Secretary Iosif Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, on his way home U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud met aboard the New Orleans-class heavy cruiser U.S.S. Quincy in the Suez Canal's Great Bitter Lake. During the meeting, instigated by Roosevelt, he and Ibn Saud concluded a secret agreement in which the U.S. would provide Saudi Arabia military security, including military assistance, training and a military base at Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, in exchange for secure access to supplies of oil.
Sixty-seven years later, my, how things have changed, as China is now muscling into the Kingdom of the Two Holy Places.
On 15 January Visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz agreed to make concerted efforts to enhance bilateral relations.
The spectacle of OPEC's leading petro-state and East Asia's superpower economy making common cause has surely caused the burning of the midnight oil inside the Beltway.
While Wen said that China is willing to strengthen coordination with Saudi Arabia on all major issues by expanding cooperation in trade, investment, infrastructure, high-tech, finance, security and law enforcement, what must have surely caught the eye of Washington's mandarins was him adding that China intends to develop a cooperative partnership with Saudi Arabia in the energy sector.
And why not? Saudi Arabia is the largest supplier of oil to China and bilateral trade between the two countries soared to $58.5 billion in the period January-November 2011.
And the fruits of such bilateral proximity were on the table even before Wen made his fulsome remarks, as the state-owned Saudi Press Agency reported on 14 January that Saudi state oil giant Aramco has signed an agreement with state-owned giant China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation Ltd. (Sinopec) to build an oil refinery, named Yasref, in the Red Sea city of Yanbu, which will become operational in 2014, processing 400,000 barrels per day..."
at http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article32715.html
In February 1945, after the Yalta Conference with Soviet General Secretary Iosif Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, on his way home U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud met aboard the New Orleans-class heavy cruiser U.S.S. Quincy in the Suez Canal's Great Bitter Lake. During the meeting, instigated by Roosevelt, he and Ibn Saud concluded a secret agreement in which the U.S. would provide Saudi Arabia military security, including military assistance, training and a military base at Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, in exchange for secure access to supplies of oil.
Sixty-seven years later, my, how things have changed, as China is now muscling into the Kingdom of the Two Holy Places.
On 15 January Visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz agreed to make concerted efforts to enhance bilateral relations.
The spectacle of OPEC's leading petro-state and East Asia's superpower economy making common cause has surely caused the burning of the midnight oil inside the Beltway.
While Wen said that China is willing to strengthen coordination with Saudi Arabia on all major issues by expanding cooperation in trade, investment, infrastructure, high-tech, finance, security and law enforcement, what must have surely caught the eye of Washington's mandarins was him adding that China intends to develop a cooperative partnership with Saudi Arabia in the energy sector.
And why not? Saudi Arabia is the largest supplier of oil to China and bilateral trade between the two countries soared to $58.5 billion in the period January-November 2011.
And the fruits of such bilateral proximity were on the table even before Wen made his fulsome remarks, as the state-owned Saudi Press Agency reported on 14 January that Saudi state oil giant Aramco has signed an agreement with state-owned giant China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation Ltd. (Sinopec) to build an oil refinery, named Yasref, in the Red Sea city of Yanbu, which will become operational in 2014, processing 400,000 barrels per day..."
at http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article32715.html
