Chinese foreign policy and oil

The search for oil has led the Chinese foreign economy strategy to cultivate OPEC members ( Ecuador , Gabon ), to forge a relationship with Iran , and to be engaged commercially in Kazakhstan and Russia .   The energy security realpolitik behind Chinese foreign economic policy is obvious.   But without a way to treat oil production as a means of distributing wealth in emerging markets in a manner that can be reinvested in national and regional growth, this Chinese activity risks facilitating a radical realignment of economic power in global capital markets.   The need to ensure that oil is treated as a "national" resource and used to benefit all the citizens of Gabon or the Gulf of Guinea bordering states is essential if serious dysfunctions to the global economy are to be avoided.     The debate about aid to Africa takes a radically different focus when the issue of how Gabon invests its oil resources replaces the issues of "aid" at the G8 meetings.    China 's strategic focus and economically-based foreign policy will result in some complex diplomacy in affecting the policies of countries like Sudan and Gabon who are oil-producing.    This speaks to the necessity of having China be a formal participant in global multilateral decision-making like the G8 and may require a special ad hoc global group on Oil and Democracy in order to manage the short term issues.

1. Paul Mooney in Yale Globalization Online http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=5106
2. Francesco Guerrero and James Kynge "Minmetals blazes trail for acquisition", FT September 9, 2004 http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a8258008-10af-11d9-a73b-00000e2511c8,dwp_uuid=bf499000-f5eb-11d8-b814-00000e2511c8.html
3.  New York Times articles have focused on this for the last few months:  (www.nytimes.com).    Juan Forero's "China's Oil Diplomacy in Latin America" (March 1, 2005); Larry Rohter's "China Widens Economic Role in Latin America"   (November 20, 2004);     Howard French "China in Africa"   August 8, 2004.
4. At www.ft.com,  Francesco Guerrera and James Kynge have an excellent piece on "Minmetals blazes trail for acquisition"  (September 29, 2004)