摘要
Due to the symbiotic relations between oil and the contemporary Middle East, a global energy transition is bound to affect the Middle East’s international status and the power structure among its countries. The power gap between rich and poor countries will widen, and the “big politics of small states” in countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar may become more prominent. As economic development has become the top priority of national strategies, many hot spots in the Middle East have cooled down as relations between rival countries have eased and there are even signs of multilateral economic cooperation. Meanwhile, there are signs of vicious economic competition among related countries. With the decline of the Middle East’s global importance, the United States and Europe are moving further away while the interdependence between Asia and the Middle East is increasing. Reforms to tackle the energy transition in the Middle East are a race against time, difficult, and uncertain, but the signs so far are positive.