With markets and the media riveted by China’s hunt for natural resources in Australia, Africa and Latin America, the Middle East story has perhaps been underplayed.

That’s the view of Ben Simpfendorfer, an economist in Hong Kong for Royal Bank of Scotland, who seeks to redress the balance in his new book, “The New Silk Road: How a Rising Arab World is Turning Away from the West and Rediscovering China.”

For Mr. Simpfendorfer, who speaks Arabic and Chinese, the world is witnessing nothing less than two historical powers simultaneously reclaiming their economic and cultural primacy in the world. “The stories often appear unrelated, but they are in fact part of a larger global rebalancing that represents the rise of the East after centuries of Western dominance,” he writes.

These are grand claims. Do they stack up? Xu Changwen, a researcher at the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, said a complementary trade structure had fueled the boom: China needs oil from the Middle East, which is an avid buyer of Chinese clothes and other consumer goods. Talks on a free-trade deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council underlined the scope to develop ties, but one should keep a sense of proportion, Mr. Xu said.

“Market demand from the United States and Europe is huge and will recover when the financial crisis is over, so it’s still too early to say anything like ‘The Middle East will replace the U.S. and Europe,”’ he said.