China’s Middle East Pivot Is Hard To Ignore

Whenever the "petroyuan" comes up (which is quite often these days), I'm always keen to mention the Iran factor. The petroyuan tale is essentially just a yuan-for-Saudi-crude story, and it's a favorite among the counter-narrative crowd. The idea is that China, bent on establishing an alternative to the dollar-based world order, can convince Riyadh to price its oil in renminbi, thus slowly supplanting the petrodollar system that's dominated the commodities trade for decades. The story is implau