US Senator Joseph Lieberman, a US vice-presidential candidate in 2000, has raised the alarmist scenario of a possible future military conflict between China and the US, arising out of their competitive quest for the world's dwindling oil resources. He believes that the race for oil, unless cooled down through urgent talks between the two countries, could become "as hot and dangerous as the nuclear arms race between the US and the Soviet Union" during the Cold War period. And "this could end up in real military conflict, not just economic conflict," he recently told the Council on Foreign Relations.
Looking at it, the conflict could arise in two ways. First, as both countries scour the globe for new oil sources, this will create new areas of political and economic tension. The political fragility of potentially oil-rich countries in Africa and Central Asia will make the race even more combustible. Some of the countries being wooed by China, like Sudan, for instance, are hostile to the US. In Central Asia -- another oil-rich region -- the US and China (and Russia) are engaged in a repeat of the colonial era `Great Game' of edging each other out. All this is pretty dangerous stuff.
The second source of conflict could be the oil-related politics of China and US allies. Japan is a case in point. Japan and China are disputing their maritime boundary in the East China Sea, both eyeing its rich natural-gas deposits. China reportedly has already extracted gas from one field while Japan is heading in the same direction, though it hasn't yet started drilling operations.
Tokyo is also planning new legislation to empower its coast guard to protect Japanese rights. The talks between the two countries to resolve the issue are stalled, and their leaders are hardly on speaking terms. There are also deep political problems between the two countries from the last war, with China angry that Japan is trying to whitewash its historical sins.
Japan is the US' security ally. The US line is that it is not buying into the bilateral problems between China and Japan. Washington seems to believe that if the US managed to overcome its wartime antipathy toward Japan, despite Pearl Harbor and the subsequent war between the two countries, China might as well get over it and forge a new relationship with Japan.
But doing this would mean accommodating Japan as a regional heavyweight, which China is loath to do. China wants to turn the tables on Japan by creating its own version of an East Asian co-prosperity sphere by politically marginalizing Japan. In other words, the China-Japan relationship is quite complex, with their maritime dispute only compounding an already difficult situation. And if things were to get too hot between them, the US might not be able to stay out, being as it is Japan's military ally.
The same goes for Taiwan, where the US has obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act.
It is not suggested that there is a war just around the corner between China and the US. Indeed, it is not imminent despite the dramatic scenario painted by Lieberman. But it is a fluid situation and things can be unpredictable. The point to make is that it is not just the quest for oil which might put the US and China on a collision course at some time in the future. The overriding factor is that China is seeking to emerge as an alternative superpower.
China, though, has factored continuing general tensions with the US into the equation; with President Hu Jintao (
What this means is that Beijing is not anticipating a military conflict with the US, at least not in the near future. In other words, it wouldn't provoke one when it is on such unequal terms with the US.
Lieberman's suggestion that the US and China have "got to start discussions before the race for oil becomes dangerous," elevates China to the same status as the US, with the assumption that the rest of the world is somehow a passive element in this power game. This is an arrogant and dangerous assumption to say the least. For instance, where would Europe, India, Japan and others fit into this bilateral carving up of the world's oil reserves?
In any case, China is not keen to have limits put on its energy use contending that, on a per capita basis, the US is already using many times more energy than China. In other words, there is no shared starting point. According to Lieberman, "China, bottom-line, needs assured access to sources of oil."
If so, who is going to make that possible? It is unlikely that the US or any other country or countries can give that kind of assurance to China. Fortunately, Lieberman is only a senator, although a powerful one. But it is a dangerous line of thinking to deal with China over the heads of the rest of the world. Anyway, China doesn't think that its development strategy will lead to war. Its message to the world, worried about its future direction, is that there is no need to worry, because they will be different from many big powers in history that "rose and caused earthquakes." Why?
Simply because, as a senior Chinese diplomat put it, "the world has changed. It's not like in the past when powers had to expand territorially in order to get markets," or raw materials. In a new "globalized" world China will simply use the tools of a capitalist economy to come out on top, though it might take a long time because of its huge population and internal social problems.
The message to the US is equally conciliatory. According to China's ambassador in Australia "We believe co-operation with the US is very important for us. We are not interested in competing for world power. We have too many people to worry about."
But this is all semantics and Beijing is very good at it. It is true that China has many internal problems. But that doesn't prevent it from projecting its power, as it is already doing.
Without its emerging superpower image, China's communist regime has very little legitimacy at home. It is now a national project to make China into a superpower and everything must fit into place.
But Beijing is not stupid enough to collide with the US. It will let trade and diplomacy do the work, while steadily building up its military machine as an important and ultimate prop.
Lieberman is right to worry, but China will choose its own time.
Sushil Seth is a writer based in Australia.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past