Chinese President Hu Jintao's tour moves on from the United States tomorrow and will highlight just how anxious China is for oil to fuel that growth.
Hu will make a three-day state visit to Saudi Arabia from tomorrow, just three months after the recently crowned King Abdullah visited China on his first-ever state visit as king.
By flying from Washington to Riyadh, Mr Hu is demonstrating how important the Saudi kingdom and its oil are for China, whose growing demand has helped push world crude prices to this week's all-time highs over $72 a barrel.
"The fact that Hu is moving to reciprocate the King's visit so quickly, and on the heels of his US visit, is intended to signal how importantly both sides take the relationship," said Flynt Leverett, a former US policymaker now at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington.
Mr Hu's visit may not yield immediate deals for the world's number two oil consumer, said John Calabrese, an expert on China-Saudi ties at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
But across the Middle East, Beijing is wooing oil-rich state with assurances that it needs sure supplies, and comes knocking without the heavy political baggage of the United States.
"They've been slow, patient and chipping away, and it's beginning to pay off," Mr Calabrese said of China.