ABSTRACT
In the last two decades, China and the Arab world – or, rather, some important Arab countries – have built up close networks of cooperation and transactions; presumably the process will continue in the future. This has been a rather novel development, given the point that, in the 1970s, the relations were still weak, as regards to some countries even outright icy. However, in a very long term perspective, we might see the new patterns of Sino-Arab cooperation as part of a global rebalancing process by which countries such as China, India or the Arab world are rebuilding patterns of close cooperation, while at the same time regaining, at least partly, the relative weight in the world economy which they had prior to about 1750. Some observers spoke recently of a “New Silk Road”, alluding to the historic trade connections which in ancient and medieval times linked China and the Arab world (Simpfendorfer, 2009).
