Remember how you started junior high thinking that every kid was bigger than you and missing the security of the 30 kids you knew from kindergarten? But it was okay because you still had your bestest friend! Well, that was until you saw your best friend holding hands with a more athletic, more popular, hipper, smarter, richer girl from the primary across town who just showed you up as a doofus in P.E. by blocking all your kickballs.
That's how Dubya must feel if he's allowed to see the pictures of Hu Jintao coming out of Saudi Arabia this morning. It's the end of the Saudi-American romance because Saudi has a new best friend now.
It should worry the hell out of the Bushistas that Hu flew straight to Saudi Arabia from Washington and immediately on landing signed agreements on energy, defence cooperation and security with our best friends in the Middle East.
Pictures and press excerpts on Black Gold Diplomacy below the fold.
Saudi said she loved only me! I carved BFF with her initials into a tree with my chainsaw . . .
We were always so happy together! She said she felt safe with me.
What can this mean?
Saudi looks so desperate and needy! Doesn't she know that she's embarrassing herself like this, chasing after China?
Does she really like China better than me just because China has more money, more growth, no defence export restrictions, no human rights concerns, a bigger army and an insatiable appetite for oil and petrochemicals?
Everybody wants to be friends with China!
Since the 2003 war the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the largest state-owned oil company, has signed 20 contracts to explore new fields or acquire existing operations in 12 countries, from Indonesia to Tunisia.
Closer to home, it has also been vying with Japan for access to lucrative Russian oil fields in Siberia. In 2004 alone, it increased its overseas oil production by 20 per cent and doubled its extraction of natural gas abroad.
Beijing's newly cultivated energy alliances with populist Left-wing leaders in Latin America, traditionally regarded as the US backyard, are causing alarm in Washington.
Venezuela, which is America's fourth biggest oil supplier and is led by Hugo Chávez, the anti-US authoritarian, sold only 12,300 barrels a day to China in 2004 but that figure will soar under new deals. Beijing is also expanding operations in Bolivia, where Mr Chávez's ally, Evo Morales, became president last year, and Peru.
More on the Saudi-China meetings this weekend from Reuters:
RIYADH (Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao kicked off a three-day trip to China's main oil supplier Saudi Arabia on Saturday, giving further impetus to a budding alliance between the countries.
Hu's flight straight from Washington -- where he met President George W. Bush -- to Riyadh has underscored how important Saudi Arabia and its oil are for China, where burgeoning demand has helped push world crude prices to this week's all-time highs of over $72 a barrel. . . .
King Abdullah headed a large delegation to China in January in a drive to develop Saudi Arabia's trade links with rising Asian economies and diversify from traditional U.S. ties.
Saudi Arabia was China's top oil supplier in 2005, providing 17.5 percent of its imports with 443,600 barrels per day (bpd).
Flanked by Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, Hu visited to the headquarters of Saudi industrial giant Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) and discussed plans for a $5.2 billion refinery and petrochemical project at Dalian in northeast China in cooperation with industrial conglomerate Shide Group. . . .
Saudi media said Sinopec and state oil firm Saudi Aramco signed an unspecified memorandum of understanding on "trade cooperation". The countries also signed a security cooperation agreement. . . . .
Saudi media said [Hu] discussed issues including Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the stand-off over Iran's nuclear energy programme with the Riyadh-based head of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Abdul-Rahman al-Attiya.
Attiya said that China and the GCC could sign a free-trade agreement by the end of the year.
Saudi Arabia has powerful security ties with the United States, and it has insisted that its growing ties with Beijing are no threat to Washington.