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ABSTRACT
In the past half-decade, the role of the Gulf in the international political economy has changed dramatically. The region’s position as a supplier of world hydrocarbons has slipped, even as local consumption of oil and gas continues to expand. Gulf investments have shifted from the industrialized countries to the Middle East and North Africa. Saudi Arabia no longer exercises disproportionate influence in the Group of 20. Finally, relations with the People’s Republic of China and India have become truly interdependent, which gives the Gulf the capacity to exercise leverage over these two rising powers, despite its diminished position in global affairs.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Matteo Legrenzi is Associate Professor at Ca' Foscari University of Venice.
Fred H. Lawson is Professor of Government at Mills College in Oakland, California.
Notes
1 See David E. Spiro, The Hidden Hand of American Hegemony (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999).
2 See Fred H. Lawson, ‘The Persian Gulf in the Contemporary International Economy’, in The Political Economy of the Persian Gulf, ed. Mehran Kamrava (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 13–38; Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, The GCC States and the Shifting Balance of Global Power, Occasional Paper No. 6, Center for International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, Doha, 2010; Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, The Gulf States in International Political Economy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
3 See Matteo Legrenzi and Bessma Momani, eds., Shifting Geo-economic Power of the Gulf (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011).
4 International Energy Agency, Natural Gas Liquids: Supply Outlook 2008–2015 (Paris: International Energy Agency, April 2010).
5 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, June 2010, 12.
6 Middle East Economic Digest, 12–18 March 2010.
7 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, June 2010, 27.
8 Raed Kombargi, Otto Waterlander, George Sarraf, and Asheesh Sastry, Gas Shortage in the GCC: How to Bridge the Gap (Abu Dhabi: Booz, n.d.), 7.
9 Ibid., 3.
10 Mina Toksoz, ‘The GCC: Prospects and Risks in the New Oil Boom’, in The Gulf Region: A New Hub of Global Financial Power, ed. John Nugee and Paola Subacchi (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2008), 92.
11 These more recent figures include natural gas liquids along with oil.
12 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, June 2014.
13 Florence Eid, ‘The New Face of Arab Investment’, in The Gulf Region: A New Hub of Global Financial Power, ed. John Nugee and Paola Subacchi (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2008), 71. See also Samer N. Abboud, ‘Oil and Financialization in the Gulf Cooperation Council’, in Shifting Geo-economic Power of the Gulf, ed. M. Legrenzi and B. Momani (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 91–105.
14 Bessma Momani, ‘Gulf Cooperation Council Oil Exporters and the Future of the Dollar’, New Political Economy 13 (September 2008): 305.
15 Eid, ‘New Face of Arab Investment’, 71.
16 Benedict de Saint-Laurent, Investment from the GCC and Development in the Mediterranean, Documenti IAI 09/36, Istituto Affari Internazionali, December 2009; Bessma Momani, ‘Shifting Gulf Arab Investments into the Mashreq: Underlying Political Economy Rationales?’ in Shifting Geo-economic Power of the Gulf, ed. M. Legrenzi and B. Momani (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 163–181; Adam Hanieh, Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 151–153.
17 The Middle East, December 2010, 29.
18 Ibid.
19 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, World Investment Report 2015, A5.
20 Khaleej Times, 22 January 2011.
21 ‘Primary Aluminium Production’, 21 November 2016, www.world-aluminum.org/statistics (accessed March 17, 2017).
22 S. Sundaram, ‘Oil – Fueling GRP Growth in the Middle East’, 1 October 2008, www.reinforcedplastics.com (accessed March 17, 2017).
23 Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting, Gulf Statistical Profile 2008 (Doha: GOIC, 2009), 183.
24 Middle East Economic Digest, 7–13 May 2010.
25 ‘Iran Ranks Third in World Cement Production’, Iran Daily, 20 August 2015.
26 Bessma Momani, ‘The Oil-Producing Gulf States, the IMF and the International Financial Crisis’, World Economics 10 (January–March 2009), 16.
27 Ibid., 17.
28 Eric Helleiner and Stefano Pagliari, ‘Towards a New Bretton Woods? The First G20 Leaders Summit and the Regulation of Global Finance’, New Political Economy 14 (June 2009); Andrew F. Cooper and Colin I. Bradford, The G20 and the Post-crisis Economic Order, CIGI G20 Papers No. 3, June 2010; Federico Steinberg, The Global Governance Agenda and the Role of the G20, Working Paper 39/2010, Real Iberoamericana de Estudios Internacionales, 15 December 2010.
29 Financial Times, 13 March 2009.
30 Momani, ‘Oil-Producing Gulf States’, 20.
31 Andrew F. Cooper and Eric Helleiner, ‘Advances in Global Economic Governance amid the Obstacles at the Seoul G20 Summit’, Social Europe Journal, 7 January 2011.
32 Claudia Schmucker and Katharina Gnath, From the G8 to the G20: Reforming the Global Economic Governance System, GARNET Working Paper No. 73/09, January 2010, 8.
33 Jan Nalaskowski, Rob Keane, and Thomas Wright, How Unified Is the G-20? Brookings Policy Brief, 14 November 2014.
34 Mahmoud Ghafouri, ‘China’s Policy in the Persian Gulf’, Middle East Policy 16 (Summer 2009): 83–4.
35 Christopher Davidson, The Persian Gulf and Pacific Asia (London: Hurst, 2010), 28.
36 Thomas Strouse, ‘Constricting Asian Market for Iranian Crude’, 24 September 2010, http://to.pbs.org (accessed March 17, 2017); Zhao Hongtu, ‘China’s Energy Interest and Security in the Middle East’, in China’s Growing Role in the Middle East (Dubai: Gulf Research Center, 2010), 46. The figure for Iran marks a drop from 14% four years earlier; see John Calabrese, China and Iran: Mismatched Partners, Occasional Paper, The Jamestown Foundation, August 2006, 7.
37 John Calabrese, The Consolidation of Gulf-Asia Relations, Policy Brief No. 25, The Middle East Institute, Washington, DC, June 2009, 7; Mohamed A. El-Khawas, ‘China’s Link to the Developing World: In Pursuit of Energy Security’, Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 32 (Winter 2009): 71; Shahram Chubin, ‘Iran and China: Political Partners or Strategic Allies?’ in China’s Growing Role in the Middle East (Dubai: Gulf Research Center, 2010), 65.
38 Gulf News, 10 October 2010.
39 Ghafouri, ‘China’s Policy’, 87; Steve A. Yetiv and Chunlong Lu, ‘China, Global Energy, and the Middle East’, Middle East Journal 61 (Spring 2007), 205–6. See also Christopher M. Davidson, ‘The Gulf Arab States and Asia Pacific: Geo-economics and Interdependency [sic]’, in Shifting Geo-economic Power of the Gulf, ed. M. Legrenzi and B. Momani (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 183–198.
40 John Calabrese, ‘China and the Persian Gulf: Energy and Security’, Middle East Journal 52 (Summer 1998): 358; Abdulaziz Sager, ‘GCC-China Relations: Looking Beyond Oil’, China’s Growing Role in the Middle East (Dubai: Gulf Research Center, 2010), 5.
41 Ghafouri, ‘China’s Policy’, 88.
42 Luo Yuan, ‘China’s Strategic Interests in the Gulf and Trilateral Relations among China, the U.S. and Arab Countries’, China’s Growing Role in the Middle East (Dubai: Gulf Research Center, 2010), 25.
43 Kelly Sims Gallagher, China Shifts Gears (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006), 23.
44 Jinghai Zheng, Arne Bigsten, and Angang Hu, ‘Can China’s Growth Be Sustained?’ World Development 37 (April 2009): 874; Erik Gartzke, Quan Li and Charles Boehmer, 'Investing in the Peace: Economic Interdependence and International Conflict', International Organization 55 (Spring 2001).
45 Olivier Blanchard and Francesco Giavazzi, 'Rebalancing Growth in China: A Three-Handed Approach', China and World Economy 14 (2006), 1–20; Pingyao Lai and Qingru Li, 'Development in China's Foreign Trade: 2003–2012', China and World Economy 21 (2013), 58–59; Guonan Ma, Ivan Roberts and Gerard Kelly, 'Rebalancing China's Economy: Domestic and International Implications', China and World Economy 25 (2017), 1–31.
46 Kang Wu and Jane Nakano, The Changing Political Economy of Energy in China (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2016).
47 Kwang Ho Chun, ‘Analysing China’s Energy Security: A Source of Conflict?’ Journal of East Asian Affairs 23 (Spring–Summer 2009): 94.
48 Ibid., 97; Hongxing Yang and Dingxin Zhao, 'Performance Legitimacy, State Autonomy and China's Economic Miracle', Journal of Contemporary China 24 (2015), 64–82; Ray Ou Yang, 'Political Process and Widespread Protests in China: The 2010 Labor Protest', Journal of Contemporary China 24 (2015), 21–42.
49 Colin Mackerras, ‘Xinjiang at the Turn of the Century: The Causes of Separatism’, Central Asian Survey 20 (September 2001); Graham E. Fuller and S. Frederick Starr, The Xinjiang Problem (Washington, DC: Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, 2003); Michael Clarke, 'China, Xinjiang and the Internationalisation of the Uyghur Issue', Global Change, Peace and Security 22 (2010), 213–229.
50 Los Angeles Times, 30 September 2005; Financial Times, 28 August 2008; John Chan, ‘Ethnic Tensions Flare Again in China’s Xinjiang Region’, 10 September 2009, www.countercurrents.org (accessed March 17, 2017); Shan Wei, ‘Explaining Ethnic Protests and Ethnic Policy Changes in China’, International Journal of China Studies 1 (October 2010): 509.
51 Wei, ‘Explaining Ethnic Protests’, 520–1.
52 Ibid., 521.
53 Harsh Pant, ‘Looking Beyond Tehran: India’s Rising Stakes in the Gulf’, in India’s Growing Role in the Gulf, ed. Gulf Research Center (Dubai: Gulf Research Center, 2009), 46.
54 Middle East Economic Digest, 26 March–1 April 2010. See also Zakir Hussain, Indian PM’s Visit to Oman and Qatar, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, 2 December 2008.
55 Samir Pradhan, ‘India’s Economic and Political Presence in the Gulf’, in India’s Growing Role in the Gulf, ed. Gulf Research Center (Dubai: Gulf Research Center, 2009), 28.
56 Dietmar Rothermund, India: The Rise of an Asian Giant (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), chap. 11; Pant, ‘Looking Beyond Tehran’, 47; New Indian Express (Chennai), 30 April 2008; Hussain, Indian PM’s Visit.
57 Pant, ‘Looking Beyond Tehran’, 47.
58 Ibid., 48; N. Janardhan, ‘What Oils the Wheels of GCC-Indian Cooperation?’ Daily Star (Beirut), 12 August 2005; Financial Times, 18 May 2010.
59 Tanvi Madan, India and the Iran Deal (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2015).
60 ‘India to Increase Oil Imports from Africa, Cut Dependence on Middle East’, Associated Press, 22 January 2016.
61 Issac John, ‘India Offers UAE Stakes in Petro Projects; Plans to Boost Oil Imports’, Khaleej Times, 12 April 2016.
62 ‘Iraq Overtakes Saudi Arabia as Biggest Oil Exporter to India’, Reuters, 12 May 2016.
63 Jude Hislop, 'India Developing Strategic Petroleum Reserves as Oil Imports Grow', North American Energy News, 19 July 2016.
64 Rebecca Bundhun, 'India Expands Crude Oil Refinery Capacity', The National (Abu Dhabi), 23 July 2016.
65 'India's 2016 Iran Oil Imports Hit Record High', Reuters, 13 January 2017.
66 Deepa M. Ollapally, ‘China and India: Economic Ties and Strategic Rivalry’, Orbis 58 (Summer 2014); Joe Thomas Karackattu, 'Assessing Sino-Indian Economic Relations in an Interdependence Framework: 1992–2008', Economic and Political Studies 3 (January 2015); Jingdong Yuan, 'Sino-Indian Economic Ties since 1988: Progress, Problems and Prospects for Future Development,' Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 45 (2016).
67 See Anne Uchitel, 'Interdependence and Instability', in Coping with Complexity in the International System, eds. Jack Snyder and Robert Jervis (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993).
68 David Brewster, 'An Indian Ocean Dilemma: Sino-Indian Rivalry and China's Strategic Vulnerability in the Indian Ocean', Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 11 (2015), 49–59.
69 Niclas D. Weimar, 'Sino-Indian Power Predominance in Maritime Asia: A (Re-)Source of Conflict in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea', Global Change, Peace and Security 25 (2013), 17–19; Eryan Ramadhani, 'China in the Indian Ocean Region: The Confined 'Far-Seas Operations'', India Quarterly 71 (2015), 146–159; Harsh V. Pant, 'Rising China in India's Vicinity: A Rivalry Takes Shape in Asia', Cambridge Review of International Affairs 29 (2016), 364–382.
70 Compare Andrej Krickovic, 'When Interdependence Produces Conflict: EU-Russia Energy Relations as a Security Dilemma', Contemporary Security Policy 36 (2015), 3–26.