283 CHAPTER 12 China and the Gulf States: Economic Relationship, Challenges and Future Nawar Kassomeh and Jalal Qanas © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023, corrected publication 2023 N. Kozhanov et al. (eds.), GCC Hydrocarbon Economies and COVID, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5462-7_12 N. Kassomeh · J. Qanas (*) College of Business and Economics, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar e-mail: jqanas@qu.edu.qa N. Kassomeh n.kassomeh@lancaster.ac.uk The original version of this chapter was revised: Missing author name has now been inserted. The correction to this chapter is available at https://doi. org/10.1007/978-981-19-5462-7_13 12.1 INTRODUCTION In the recent years, China and the Gulf Cooperation (GCC hereafter) countries have achieved a remarkable level of economic interdepend- ency. The oil production boom in the USA meant that the latter will decrease its import from the Gulf market. The US production of oil increased from 5 mbd in 2008 to over 9 mbd in 2015. Consequently, America became less dependent on oil imports. Meanwhile, because of its fast growing economy and the increasing demands for oil to run its economy, China has become increasingly dependent on oil imports to run its economy. Between 2000 and 2010, China's oil consumption