China and Oil and The Middle East - Oh My!

A very worrying article in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) this morning on China's growing need for oil and how it could reshape the world-wide balance of power - especially in the Middle East - and how it could increase pollution concerns.

Some key paragraphs:

With its factories working overtime, and its consumers on course to buy almost two million cars this year, China is developing a world-class thirst for oil. And its hunt for steady supplies is reshaping the global energy market, the environment and world politics.

China -- which this year surpassed Japan as the No. 2 petroleum user after the U.S. -- is increasing its oil purchases even faster than it is pumping up its brawny economy. Imports for the first 10 months of 2003 are up 30% from the year-earlier period. The International Energy Agency expects imports to double to some four million barrels a day by 2010. By 2030, the IEA expects China to be importing about 10 million barrels a day, roughly what the U.S. brings in now. Domestic oil output, meanwhile, is flat.

From Houston to London to Moscow, oil companies are looking to secure market share in China, as China roams the world looking for oil fields to develop. Some fear that China, which doesn't have large strategic reserves of fuel, might grow so desperate for oil that it would battle the U.S. for influence in the Middle East or even trade weapons technology to terrorist states. Others are more optimistic, and think China will realize it has a vital interest in keeping the region stable.

[snip]

Meanwhile, China's mushrooming fleet of cars is adding to worries about this smokestack nation's impact on the environment. In the next decade, the number of cars on Chinese roads is expected to grow fivefold to 100 million, approaching half of the U.S. total, according to the Development Research Center, a government think tank. China is set to tighten its emission standards by 2005, and in 2008 it plans to introduce standards that could be even tougher than those in the U.S.

"If all our bicycles turn into our cars, that's a horrible figure," says Zhai Guangming, retired director of oil exploration at state-run China National Petroleum Corp. "It would scare the world."

Scariest of all was this historical comparison:

Still, many analysts are wary of a Beijing that could begin to feel boxed in by its energy needs. The study noted that China might emerge as a major arms supplier to the Saudis. Other analysts fear that China might be tempted to trade weapons technology for access to oil in countries such as Libya and Iran.

More than 60 years ago, another emerging Asian power felt squeezed on energy: Japan. The U.S. responded to Japanese aggression in East Asia by imposing a natural-resources embargo on Tokyo, which hit back by attacking Pearl Harbor.

I had thought of the problems with China's growing appetite for more Western amenities, especially cars, in terms of pollution. What had never occurred to me was what the need for all the gasoline to fuel all those cars would do to world petroleum markets. China's moves in the international sphere have never been transparent or particularly predictable. The thought of them competing for limited resources with the West and their historical tendency to deal with more unsavory powers and countries to get what they wanted is worrying, to say the very least. The thought of any of the more unstable countries in the Middle East with high-tech or nuclear Chinese weapons is too horrible to contemplate.

Yes, I know that Israel has nuclear weapons - and that doesn't help me sleep any better at night, either.

This situation needs close watching; with BushCo currently distracted by Iraq they've already shown they can't pay attention to more than one thing at a time - witness the backsliding in Afghanistan - I'm not confident this is getting the attention it deserves.

I hope I'm wrong.