#头条创作挑战赛 #
Saudi Arabia and China are getting closer and closer, and the petrodollar is hanging more and more.
From Saudi Arabia's repeated voices to the United States and support China, to China's facilitation of Saudi Arabia and Iran to reconcile, to Saudi Arabia's becoming a partner of the SCO, Saudi Arabia's geopolitical balance has become more and more tilted towards China, which has also made the United States increasingly nervous.
Because the hegemony of the dollar is bound to Saudi Arabia's oil resources, if Saudi Arabia's little brother is "anti-water", the United States will be in big trouble.
The current world is an era of great disassembly, the existing order absolutely dominated by the United States has collapsed, the island chain world system is taking shape, and the countries need each other, but they are not necessary.
This is true of Russia to the European Union, and the United States to Saudi Arabia.
The turning Saudi Arabia is a huge geopolitical weight, and it is the actual power of Saudi Arabia at the moment, Crown Prince and Prime Minister Salman Jr., who is throwing this weight.
Unlike the old Saudi kings who only followed the United States in everything, Salman Jr. is a ruthless character who dares to directly call out the United States, and the extent to which Saudi Arabia can turn depends on his geographical decision.
So will he cut off the binding of oil to the dollar? Will it be the name of oil to the East?
The old tradition of Boyan Society: to learn the new from the past, and to accurately predict the future, it must be based on a detailed analysis of the past. So today we will dissect the succession road of little Salman and take a look at the crown prince's vertical and horizontal skills in the game of great powers.
Chapter 1: Children Growing Up in Power Struggles
Little Salman grew up in a power struggle. Due to Saudi Arabia's succession system, the Saudi royal family behind Salman Jr. has gone through more than a dozen bloody power struggles in the past few decades.
It was not until the elder King Salman took over the throne and installed his son Salman Jr. as crown prince that the change from brother and brother to father's death and son succession system was announced.
Salman Jr. is a symbol of Saudi Arabia's political turn and a member of the royal family's power vortex – from birth.
In 1985, little Salman was born in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, and little Salman, born with a golden spoon, was ambitious from an early age, he admired Alexander the Great, painstakingly studied the art of imperial rule, and perhaps ah, the ambition to rebuild the Arab Empire was buried in his heart at that time.
Salman Jr. received royal education and political training at the Royal School, and then entered King Saud University to study law.
Although the Saudi media said that Salman Jr. graduated from King Saudi University in second place, Western media mercilessly pointed out that for ordinary Saudis, King Saudi University is the number one university, but for Salman Jr., King Saudi University is their home school. The second place is excellent, and there is no credibility.
But in any case, after graduating from King Saud University, Salman Jr. entered Saudi Arabia's pillar industry, the oil industry, and participated in Aramco's management and international finance of oil futures.
In 2009, 24-year-old Salman was recalled to Riyadh by his father Salman Sr. and entered the circle of power as a prince.
Initially, he served as his father's special political adviser, and just five years later, Salman Jr. entered the Saudi cabinet, the center of Saudi power.
In Saudi Arabia, where the feudal system is practiced, little Salman ascended to heaven by blood, but this is far from the end.
In 2015, Saudi Arabia's power shook, and the Salman era suddenly began.
Chapter 2: Traders Under the Winds of Power
In early 2015, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia died of illness and crown prince Salman Sr. ascended the throne.
On the day he became king, Salman Sr. appointed Salman Jr. as defense minister with military powers, and then reshuffled the cabinet, establishing the Economic and Development Affairs Committee, chaired by Salman Jr., essentially putting Salman Jr. in charge of Saudi Arabia's highest economic power.
In April of the same year, King Salman deposed his younger brother, then Crown Prince Muqrin, and appointed his nephew Nayef as crown prince, breaking the "brother and brother" succession system established by the Kingdom since its founding in 1932.
Everyone knows that Nayef is a transitional figure, and the actual heir is Salman Jr., the deputy crown prince and son of the king.
At that time, the younger Salman was also the Saudi Minister of Defense, the Chief of Staff of the Royal Palace, the King's Personal Advisor, and the Chairman of the Economic and Development Affairs Committee.
It was from this time that the Salman father and son were brewing a bloody storm to completely change the inheritance system.
From 2015 to 2017, it was the most intense period of power struggle for the Saudi royal family. On one side is the establishment led by Salman's father and son, and on the other is the power group headed by Muqlin, which supports brotherhood and system.
Although the black box of Saudi Arabia's power has not been disclosed, it can be inferred from the information disclosed by the media that in order to seize power, Salman and his son introduced the power of the big brother the United States, and the bargaining chip for the United States to intervene is oil.
In the end, this royal power storm ended in 2017, when Crown Prince Nayef was deposed and Salman Jr. became Saudi crown prince and deputy prime minister, and the Saudi royal family held a power allegiance ceremony at the Holy City of Makkah Safah Palace that evening.
Salman's father and son became big winners, and little Salman rode the east wind to the peak of power. His road to power, no waves, no twists and turns, a horse is smooth, thousands of miles fast, I am afraid that in the current world, there is only this one isolated case.
The third chapter, the Zongheng cloaked in the skin of Westernization
It has to be said that little Salman is a natural longitudinal.
As crown prince, he assumed an enlightened and Westernized style of power, pushing for sweeping reforms that included allowing women to work, promoting the IPO of Saudi Arabia's state-run oil company, investing heavily in the services sector and campaigning against corruption against the Saudi royal family.
Compared with his predecessors, Salman Jr. was more secular and modern, and attacked the traditional dogmas of Wahhabism, and even the United States considered him a Westerner.
However, the United States was fooled.
Westernization is only a skin, a political tool used by Salman Jr. to confuse and flatter the United States, and his spiritual background is the feudal emperor of Great Arabism.
Whether it is the iron-blooded treatment of domestic opponents and Shiite believers, or the assassination of independent journalist Jamal Khashoggi, it shows that this ruthless Saudi man does not care about Western universal values.
He is a pure pragmatist, and profit is his only consideration.
In September 2022, King Salman ordered a reshuffle of the cabinet, and Salman Jr. became the prime minister, according to tradition, the prime minister is concurrently served by the king, obviously, this reshuffle has been equivalent to publicizing to the outside world: Saudi Arabia, it is already Salman Jr. who has the final say.
Now, little Salman, who is crisscrossing the great powers, has seen the way out - there is the greatest geopolitical gain in turning to the East, and there is also a greater bargaining chip with the West. Geopolitics, just look at two words: interests. And interests are the only reason why Saudi Arabia turned to the East.