Why the ChiComms want the Middle East
In a word: oil. And, according to the Christian Science Monitor's David R. Francis, this has the PRC and the USA on an inevitable collision course.
Look at this imbalance: The average American consumes 25 barrels of oil a year. In China, the average is about 1.3 barrels per year; in India, less than one.
So as the 2.4 billion Chinese and Indians move to improve their living standards, they're going to want more oil - likely more than can be produced.
That perceived shortage is setting off an intensifying scramble to tie up oil reserves around the world. So far, China has been the most aggressive player. But the competition is just getting going.
The pattern is clear. China has been weighing buying Unocal, a major US oil firm. Last month in Beijing, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez promised to open that nation's oil and natural gas fields to China. Russia, in effect renationalizing the giant oil subsidiary of Yukos, may offer China a 20% chunk of the new firm.
China's efforts to tie up oil and gas resources - in places such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan - have not been cheap. But it has an unfair advantage, says Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research in Amherst, Mass. Its national oil firms have access to cheap capital from government institutions - and few limits on entering areas seen as sensitive for publicly held Western firms. (Think violence-prone Sudan.)
The challenge is huge. For China and India to reach just one-quarter of the level of US oil consumption, world output would have to rise by 44%. To get to half the US level, world production would need to nearly double.
That's impossible. The world's oil reserves are finite. And the view is spreading that global oil output will soon peak.
As a result, "the growing demand for oil is leading to a growing global conflict," warns Amos Nur, a geophysicist at Stanford University. The 1991 Gulf War, the 9/11 attack, and the current war in Iraq are skirmishes that could "pale in comparison with the looming potential conflict over oil with China."
Combine this trend with what appears to be Beijing's laying the logistical groundwork for a military foray into the Middle East, and their nearing a deal to buy as many as forty Tu-22M3 "Backfire" supersonic bombers from the Russians - "enough to guarantee the destruction of a U.S. carrier [battle] group," according to the state-run RIA-Novosti news agency - and the most likely end result is not very reassuring.
They say that second-term presidents usually end up the victims of unexpected, onrushing events beyond their control. In the case of George W. Bush, he could (and will) succeed in pacifying Iraq, and maybe even avert a nuclear Iran, only to come face-to-face with a Russian-backed ChiComm grab for Taiwan that would be the bait for a fifth world war.
And the clock would appear to already be tick-tick-ticking....
Look at this imbalance: The average American consumes 25 barrels of oil a year. In China, the average is about 1.3 barrels per year; in India, less than one.
So as the 2.4 billion Chinese and Indians move to improve their living standards, they're going to want more oil - likely more than can be produced.
That perceived shortage is setting off an intensifying scramble to tie up oil reserves around the world. So far, China has been the most aggressive player. But the competition is just getting going.
The pattern is clear. China has been weighing buying Unocal, a major US oil firm. Last month in Beijing, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez promised to open that nation's oil and natural gas fields to China. Russia, in effect renationalizing the giant oil subsidiary of Yukos, may offer China a 20% chunk of the new firm.
China's efforts to tie up oil and gas resources - in places such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan - have not been cheap. But it has an unfair advantage, says Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research in Amherst, Mass. Its national oil firms have access to cheap capital from government institutions - and few limits on entering areas seen as sensitive for publicly held Western firms. (Think violence-prone Sudan.)
The challenge is huge. For China and India to reach just one-quarter of the level of US oil consumption, world output would have to rise by 44%. To get to half the US level, world production would need to nearly double.
That's impossible. The world's oil reserves are finite. And the view is spreading that global oil output will soon peak.
As a result, "the growing demand for oil is leading to a growing global conflict," warns Amos Nur, a geophysicist at Stanford University. The 1991 Gulf War, the 9/11 attack, and the current war in Iraq are skirmishes that could "pale in comparison with the looming potential conflict over oil with China."
Combine this trend with what appears to be Beijing's laying the logistical groundwork for a military foray into the Middle East, and their nearing a deal to buy as many as forty Tu-22M3 "Backfire" supersonic bombers from the Russians - "enough to guarantee the destruction of a U.S. carrier [battle] group," according to the state-run RIA-Novosti news agency - and the most likely end result is not very reassuring.
They say that second-term presidents usually end up the victims of unexpected, onrushing events beyond their control. In the case of George W. Bush, he could (and will) succeed in pacifying Iraq, and maybe even avert a nuclear Iran, only to come face-to-face with a Russian-backed ChiComm grab for Taiwan that would be the bait for a fifth world war.
And the clock would appear to already be tick-tick-ticking....
posted by JASmius at 12:08 AM
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