There is now little doubt that the Gulf region’s primary economic relationships are shifting from West to East.1 This book documents this trend and examines some of the political and strategic issues which follow from it. While the overall trend can be seen in terms of a West to East re-orientation, the re-orientation is in fact more complex than this. The key element is the orientation towards the newly-industrialising economies of Asia, and most specifically towards China and India. In some respect the leading developed economies of Asia, Japan and South Korea, occupy a similar position to Western countries, with a declining (but still very strong) share of Gulf trade.
