Fat Years - Chan Koonchung [112]
In the economic realm beyond politics, the world is already divided into three main regions: the European Union, the North American free-trade countries, and the Asia Pacific region. The total internal trade and direct investment within each region is greater than the economic activity between the regions. The European nations’ chief trading partners are other European Union nations, and Canada’s is the United States, not Japan or China. Starting in 2007, over half of the trade of Asian countries, excluding the Middle East, but also adding in Australia and New Zealand, has been with other Asian nations. All that remains is to link politics and economics together on the same footing and you will have regionalization.
Then Europe, America, and China can do business within their own territories and spheres of influence and can both cooperate and compete on investments and development in Africa, Asia, and Latin America based always on economic criteria. For example, in Angola, China, France, and the United States can all seek offshore oil-drilling rights, and the local government will have more choices and not be easily controlled by any one country.
The second Iraq War convinced China to invest heavily in Africa. Angola is now China’s largest single supplier of oil. Other African nations that supply us with fossil fuels include Sudan, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Chad, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Benin, and Gabon, while Algeria provides natural gas. Over 30 percent of our petroleum imports come from Africa, second only to the supply from the Middle East. Besides energy, China is also active in mining and forestry in Africa. Large areas of farmland are under contract to meet Chinese demands. China has also built roads, hospitals, harbors, airports, and communication networks. China has always advocated trade, friendship, and non-interference in other nations’ internal politics, and African leaders welcome this attitude. It is not surprising that our power and influence in Africa will soon surpass that of America, France, and Great Britain to become Africa’s number-one trading partner.
In South Asia and the Middle East, China has friendly relations with Iran and has expended a great deal of thought and money on its longtime friend Pakistan. This is an important strategic national-security consideration: to contain America’s ally India, our so-called “cold to India, warm to Islam” policy, and to protect our oil-supply lines—the shortest route for the shipment of African and Middle Eastern oil is by sea or overland to the port of Gwadar in southwest Pakistan, and then north along the Chinese-built Gwadar–Dalbandin railway to meet up with the Karakoram highway in China’s Xinjiang Province. This avoids a long sea journey from Africa or the Middle East, and bypasses the Indian Ocean and South China Sea shipping lanes—especially the narrow and busy Strait of Malacca, where the navies of India, the United States, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, and Japan frequently conduct joint naval exercises.
China has also not failed to grab any energy resources that have slipped out of the grasp of other great powers. In 2008, when the price of oil fell from $147 to $33 a barrel, China greatly increased its oil imports from Venezuela and Iran. In 2009, when Russia reneged on its contract and stopped