The Saudi Arabia of the Far East? China's rise and fall as an oil exporter

•The first succinct analysis of China's rise and fall as a net oil exporter.•Original quotes showing Chinese and Western actors’ perceptions of the future.•A useful historical background when discussing China's current oil interests.

China's international activities in the oil industry have figured prominently in the public debate in recent years. Whereas the focus today is on China's oil imports and oil-related investments abroad, this article takes a step back to analyze a period in time during which China's most important international role was that of an oil exporter. In the course of a few years in the 1970s, China's domestic oil production grew much more rapidly than domestic demand, leading some analysts in the West to envision China as a major world oil power in the making – a “Saudi Arabia of the Far East.” The article traces the evolution of this debate, focusing not only on the twists and turns that made the vision possible in the first place, but also on the machinations that ultimately made actors and analysts conclude that China's future would not be in exports, after all, but in massive imports of oil.