You might think, from the way China and the US are working together to release crude from their strategic petroleum reserves and take some of the heat out of the oil market, that the world’s two biggest energy consumers had found one issue they can co-operate on.
It’s not hard to see why Beijing would want a more secure foothold in the Gulf. The US has been one of the world’s three biggest oil producers since the 19th century and could, in a pinch, be self-sufficient. China, on the other hand, imports nearly three-quarters of its oil, about 60% of the total by sea.
That’s the best explanation for Washington’s continued obsessive involvement in the Middle East, a region in which it has few strategic interests proportional to the vast sums invested over the decades. Pipelines through Myanmar, a railway across Malaysia, and incentives for rail transport through central Asia all reduce dependence on the chokepoint around the Strait of Singapore. China’s recent increased anti-piracy activity in the Indian Ocean and aircraft carrier construction all suggest ambitions to become a naval power, able to operate far from its own shores and secure distant sea lines of communication essential for its own survival.
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