Explanation of Saudi Arabia and China relations: alliance or strategic partnership?

The relations between Chaina and Saudi Arabiahave expanded in various fields in recent years. Many have tried to explain the relations between these two states from the framwork of unifiacation theories. Nevertheless, Chaina is considerd as the most important rival of Americain internatinal system. On otherhand, Saudi Arabia is considered as a power following the West an America. Thererfore, the complexity in their relationship pattern cannot be explained by alliance theories. Therefore, the main question of the current research is, in what from can the expantion of relations between Saudi Arabia and Chaina be explained? In the new eraof international politics, many International relations reserchers talk about the end of era of "alliances" and use different conceptual and theoretical frameworks to explain the relations between countries. One of these alternative concepts is the "strategic partnership". "Strategic Partnership" does not include the guarantees and political and security obstaclaes in "Strategic Alliance" . The authors of this article have investigated the above issue by using the exdplanatory approach and by expanding the conceptual framework of "Strategic Partnership" in international relaltions. the findings of the research show that Saudi Arabia and China have passed the strategic alliance and settled for the development of "strategic Partnership" among themselves, du to their inaiblity to ignore the political, economic and commercial benefits resulting from the development and deepening of their cooperation, as well as the awareness of the existence of obstacles and political costs in forming a "strategic alliance" between each other.