I examine the political subtext of growing economic ties between Saudi Arabia and China. I argue that the strategic implications to arise from these ties are more apparent than real. One might think otherwise, and many analysts do. Saudi Arabia is an important state in the global marketplace and Islam. The country is a major producer of oil and the Saudi state is “guardian” of the holy cities, Mecca and Medina. Together they place Saudi Arabia at the intersection of international supplies of energy and transnational Muslim publics. At the same time, China is a major consumer of oil and home to a sizable Muslim minority. China is the world’s second largest net importer of oil and second biggest buyer of oil from Saudi Arabia. The United States is first in both categories though in 2011 China may well surpass it as Saudi Arabia’s biggest customer. There are somewhere between 23 and 30 million Muslims in China making it the 18th largest Muslim population in the world. Beyond the economic interdependency that the two states forge around energy and the compromises they make on the status of Muslims in China, the politics of this bilateral relationship supposedly flow from two main issues of political security: China’s military influence in the Gulf through increased sales of weaponry and material to Saudi Arabia and the complexity of the ties between Saudi Arabia and China as a strategic counterweight to the United States in the Gulf. I carefully assess these possibilities and conclude that they can be easily overstated. The business of oil is real and I use recent data on bilateral trade and investment between Saudi Arabia and China to document the vibrancy of the relationship’s economic side. But we must be careful before assuming political influence or leverage to accrue to either partner or to the partnership combined. Perception of alternatives differs in markets for energy and security. In the real world, the former offers a greater sense of opportunity; the latter a greater sense of constraint for militarily dependent states like Saudi Arabia.