Life & Wisdom Quote by Daniel Yergin

Yergin isn’t marveling at an itinerary; he’s pointing to a power map being redrawn in real time. The line “We are living in a different world now” is deliberately blunt, almost impatient, as if to say the old mental model - Washington at the center, everyone else orbiting - is now a bad guide to the news. The proof he offers is tellingly mundane: a travel schedule. That’s the point. In geopolitics, symbolism rarely arrives with trumpets; it shows up in protocol, sequencing, photo-ops, and who gets the next meeting.

The subtext of “noteworthy” is restrained but loaded. A Chinese president going from Washington to Riyadh signals that Beijing is comfortable moving between the US and a cornerstone US partner, treating them as parallel arenas rather than a hierarchy. Saudi Arabia, long read as part of an American security-and-oil bargain, becomes a stage for China’s expanding role as customer, investor, and diplomatic alternative. The itinerary hints at a world where influence is less about formal alliances and more about transactional leverage across energy, technology, and capital.

Yergin, an energy chronicler by trade, is also quietly telegraphing what drives this “different world”: hydrocarbons and supply chains still set the tempo. Riyadh isn’t just another stop; it’s a signal flare in an era of multipolar bargaining, where even US partners hedge, and China’s diplomacy follows the pipeline as much as the flag.