Tuesday, April 12, 2011

A Possible Roadmap

Hi,
these are just some of the brief thoughts of mine regarding how we might go ahead with this project.


(1) Based on last week's comments and suggestions by Tom, I think it might be helpful to look more closely at China's policy of 'self-reliance' during Mao (and perhaps even some years later). I believe this could give us a basis for better a understanding of China's current oil policy. By looking at this China's past experience, we could perhaps better evaluate how important it is for the Chinese to establish various new networks on the global oil market. For, on one hand, while it is obvious that China needs an increasing amount of oil to sustain its rapid economic growth, this sole premise itself may not be enough to examine the true importance China places on reaching out to far-flung oil markets. It is possible that by shedding more light on this particular element, we will be better equipped to properly assess China's simultaneous developments in the field of security, and potential challenges to the present U.S. military hegemony, especially in the Middle East.

(2) This brings me to my second major point - how does China's increasing presence in oil-exporting regions translate into the changing balance of powers there. Is there any threat for the U.S. if China keeps on importing steadily increasing amounts of petroleum from hitherto U.S.-dominated markets? And, if yes, what could a likely U.S. response be?

I believe it is certainly not in the U.S. interests to pass on its military control over the most significant oil regions to China. The U.S. is still going through an economic recession, while the Chinese have been enjoying an unprecedented economic growth for the past couple of years. This, however, has been yet to translate into a military leverage, which remains firmly under the grips of the U.S. army.

For me, the major question could be as follows: would the shifting geopolitical balance of powers worldwide, and especially in the Middle East and other oil-rich regions, lead to a conflict between the U.S. and China? If not, what are the indicators supporting it; if yes, can we already see signs of heightened tensions between the two superpowers?

1 comment:

  1. Jakub I think looking into the past to why China has this "self reliance" or "go abroad" stratedgy is a great idea. The second idea although important and should be address in our paper I do not believe should be our major focus, atleast not more so than trying to figure out relations with China and particularly developing countries mainly Africa and what China is doing there and China's plan, which I think is of greater focus than tensions between China and the U.S. But lets talk further about this.

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