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10/13/2005
More on China
Following are the views of some academics on the future of
China, as espoused in the pages of the September / October issue
of Foreign Affairs.
David Zweig and Bi Jianhai of the Center on China’s
Transnational Relations at the Hong Kong University of Science
and Technology write of China’s global hunt for energy.
“Twenty years ago, China was East Asia’s largest oil exporter.
Now it is the world’s second-largest importer; last year, it alone
accounted for 31 percent of global growth in oil demand. Now
that China is the workshop of the world, its hunger for electricity
and industrial resources has soared. China’s combined share of
the world’s consumption of aluminum, copper, nickel, and iron
ore more than doubled within only ten years, from 7 percent in
1990 to 15 percent in 2000; it has now reached about 20 percent
and is likely to double again by the end of the decade.”
China’s Crude Oil Imports by source, 2004
Middle East ..45.4% of total supply
Africa 28.7
Europe /
Western Hem. ...14.3
Asia-Pacific ...11.5
Of increasing tensions between U.S. and China:
“Although such friction is most obvious with the United States,
resource competition could also pit China against Japan.
Tension between Beijing and Tokyo is increasing over gas
reserves they both claim in the East China Sea. In late 2004,
Japanese media reported that the Japanese Defense Agency had
revised its security strategy partly on the assumption that
conflicts over resources could escalate into war. And last April,
after the Japanese government awarded two Japanese companies
the right to drill for oil and gas in a disputed area of the East
China Sea, the Chinese People’s Daily argued that competition
over the East China Sea was ‘only a prelude of the game between
China and Japan in the arena of international energy.’”
“Washington remains wary, especially as Beijing seeks
cooperation from other governments on the United States’
shortlist of rogue states. China is undermining U.S. efforts to
contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions by resisting the imposition of
sanctions against the Islamic Republic in the event it resumes its
efforts to enrich uranium. And Beijing is strengthening ties with
the temperamental Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, who
likes to poke the Americans in the eye. ‘We have been
producing and exporting oil for more than 100 years,’ Chavez
told a group of Chinese business executives last December. ‘But
these have been 100 years of domination by the United States.
Now we are free, and place this oil at the disposal of the great
Chinese fatherland.’ Souring relations between Caracas and
Washington have already prompted the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee to mandate contingency plans in case Venezuelan oil
stops flowing to the United States. Chinese officials, meanwhile,
deny that China’s oil hunger is increasing friction with the
United States .
“A big test of the U.S. – Chinese relationship may come if
China’s current economic growth and need for resources push it
to expand its military influence – a prospect that makes many
people nervous. Survey results released by the BBC in 2005
show that although 49 percent of respondents in 22 countries
welcome China’s economic growth, most people feel negatively
about the prospect of China significantly increasing its military
power. Few analysts expect China to become belligerent. But its
growing dependence on oil, especially from the Middle East, will
make it more actively concerned with sea-lanes, in particular the
Strait of Malacca and the Taiwan Strait, both of which its oil
tankers use. [One expert] believes that China would face an
energy crisis if its oil supply lines were disrupted and that
whoever controls the Strait of Malacca and the Indian Ocean
could block China’s oil transport route.
“Concerns about safety in the Strait of Malacca are not new, but
the potential for terrorism to target oil tankers in the region has
understandably been taken more seriously since the attacks of
September 11, 2001. Although the coastal states of Indonesia,
Malaysia, and Singapore have long patrolled the strait to ensure
free passage, now that four-fifths of China’s imported oil comes
through it, Beijing increasingly shares that interest. The Taiwan
Strait has also long been a source of concern, since it is seen as a
possible battleground between China and Taiwan were Taipei
ever to declare full sovereignty. With China increasingly reliant
on foreign resources, Beijing is now also worried that Taiwan
could threaten China’s supplies.”
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From Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of
Public Policy in Singapore.
“One key point needs to be emphasized at the outset: although
there is almost nothing China can do to disrupt the political
stability of the United States, the United States can do plenty to
destabilize China. Hence, the signals that Washington sends to
Beijing matter a great deal. Unfortunately, Washington’s current
China policy lacks coherence, and a conviction is growing
among Chinese policymakers that the United States is bent on
curtailing China’s rise. Unlike most Americans, for example, the
Chinese have not forgotten the 1999 missile attack on their
embassy in Belgrade during the war in the Balkans. U.S.
officials have claimed that it was a mistake, regretted it, and
moved on, but many Chinese remain convinced that the bombing
was deliberate. Pointing to the sophistication of U.S.
surveillance technology, they hold on to the belief that the attack
was intended as a message to China: beware of U.S. power.”
“Over the last decade, most Americans have held a static vision
of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and failed to note its
substantial transformation. On paper, the party looks much the
same as it once did, but the reality is dramatically different.
After more than a century of misrule, China is now run by the
best governing class in generations. Gone are the aging
commissars clinging to party rule; they have been replaced by
leaders committed to moving the country forward, including
many young mayors who have been trained at U.S. universities.
Already, the success of this cohort’s policies is evident – and
remarkable. Delivering rapid economic growth in small or
medium-sized societies is difficult enough, but to watch the
world’s most populous society experience the world’s most rapid
growth is like watching the fattest kid in school win the 100-
meter hurdles. Despite enormous social, cultural, and political
baggage, the Chinese economy has outpaced almost every other
economy in the past two decades .
“One of Deng’s main legacies was to steer the country resolutely
toward capitalism. He succeeded so thoroughly that now China
might consider dropping the pretense that it is a communist
country, especially in its dealings with foreign nations. In the
early 1980s, Chinese hotels often provided a book of Mao’s
sayings in each room, much like hotels in the West leave a Bible
in their nightstands. A decade later, glossy economic brochures,
lauding local investment opportunities, had replaced Mao’s Little
Red Book. Fierce competition for private investment has broken
out among Chinese cities and provinces: China is now a priority
destination for capitalists. At this point, it would be more
accurate to say that ‘CCP’ stand for ‘Chinese Capitalist Party.’”
Hott Spotts returns Oct. 27.
Brian Trumbore
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