Posted on 06/23/2005 5:32:48 PM PDT by Wiz
Hong Kong, 23 June (AKI) - This week's Middle East tour by Chinese foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, is a rare visit by a top Beijing official to the region, signals China's growing diplomatic ambitions and its quest to secure oil supplies for its energy-hungry, rapidly expanding economy. It's a change of focus for Beijing; for decades, China's communist rulers, including Mao Tse-tung, focused their diplomatic attentions on Africa, where China promoted itself as a sort of guiding light for the Third World and a bulwark against the neo-colonialist tendencies of the West. China also sought to isolate its tiny rival, Taiwan, often demanding that African nations sever diplomatic ties with Taipei, in exchange for development and military aid. This strategy has paid off with most nations in the developping world today refusing to recognise Taiwan, and China's position as a United Nations Security Council permanent member firmly ensconced.
But China's extraordinary economic growth in the past two decades and the end of the Cold War have seen Beijing priorities change. Gone is the ideological drive to champion the Third World - more pressing now is the need to ensure that the country's industries have adequate supplies of energy.
That's where the oil-rich Middle East comes in. Three-quarters of China's crude imports hail from the region, but the supplies barely satisfy 50 percent of the country's energy requirements which have shot up by 29.1 percent compared to the year 2000.
Maintaining good relations in the Middle East - as a means to guarantee oil supplies well into the future and to offset competitor Washington's influence in the region - now tops Beijing's foreign agenda.
Still, China has a lot of catching up to do.
(Excerpt) Read more at adnki.com ...
ping
I'm sure the oil lords of Saudi are very happy.
Ping
Those worthless pieces of paper (American dollars) that they get every month are being used to buy up oil. They know that barring a war we will keep sending them factories, money and intellectual property.
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