China's "Peaceful Oil Diplomacy"

Article: Hongyi Harry Lai, "China's Oil Diplomacy: Is It a Global Security Threat?" Third World Quarterly 28.3 (2007)

This article examines China's expansion into the Middle East in terms of increasing oil imports, and whether or not this represents a threat the U.S. national security by virtue of tapping into the U.S.'s source of energy resources.

The author argues that these fears have been largely exaggerated. He supports this by mentioning China's support for the U.S. actions vis-a-vis Iraq (voted in favor of UN SC Res. 1441/2002) or the still limited capacity of China's maritime forces whose main preoccupation remains covering of the Taiwan Strait in South China Sea. The Chinese ability to control the oil sea lanes to/from the Persian Gulf is thus very limited. With this in mind, China depends on help from other countries, including the U.S.

Also, in light of the fact that the U.S. oil imports from Arab OPEC nations only accounted for 14.8% in 2005 (I will have to check the latest data on this), the proposed challenge to the U.S. national security does not seem like an urgent matter.

Lastly, China's "peaceful oil diplomacy" has been underlined by the fact that, in 2004, China's domestic energy consumption was still largely based on coal (67.7%); oil accounted for 22.7%. As the study argues, thus, "imported oil plays only a minor role in China's energy consumption". With regards to oil imports from Iran, to mention some of the growing worries amongst the Americans who perceive China's friendly ties with Iran as a reason for caution, the Middle Eastern country supplied only 1% of China's total energy consumption in 2003. On top of all that, it is argued that China has been aware of the growing concerns pertaining to its rapid global expansion and growing energy needs and, thus, so far restrained from any actions that might threaten mutual relations with the U.S.

With this in mind, my personal comment would be that China's speedy development and a heightened thirst for oil are likely going to be based increasingly on oil as a vehicle for growth and urbanization. Hence, with oil expected to be gradually replacing coal in its importance as a core resource, one might expect that China could place more emphasis on securing oil imports from the Middle East in the future. This, in turn, could potentially re-shape the hitherto maintained balance of power and regional/global security framework.