Chinas' Emergence as a Superpower

The purpose of this essay is to describe the greatest threat that China poses to the United States, the region, and the world. This paper will focus on China's exponentially growing economy, and its growing dependence on liquid fossil fuels. As global oil production begins to peak, based on 2006 production results (which grew by a minute fraction of one percent), China may take extreme measures, in order to grow, or maintain its economy.

According to an article in Economic Issues, published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 1978, after years of state control of all productive assets, the government of China embarked on a major program of economic reform. In an effort to awaken a dormant economic giant, it encouraged the formation of rural enterprises and private businesses, liberalized foreign trade and investment, relaxed state control over some prices, and invested in industrial production and the education of its workforce. By nearly all accounts, the strategy has worked spectacularly.

While pre-1978 China had seen annual growth of six percent a year, post-1978 China saw average real growth of more than nine percent a year. In several peak years, the economy grew more than 13 percent. Per capita income has nearly quadrupled in the last 15 years, and a few analysts are even predicting that the Chinese economy will be larger than that of the United States in about 20 years. Such growth is comparable to that of the "Asian tigers": Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, and the Taiwan Province of China, which, as a group, had an average growth rate of seven to eight percent over the last 15 years. (Hu, Mohsin) If looked-at mathematically, just using the more conservative figure of nine percent (using the exponential function), this would give China's economy a doubling time of 7.77 years.

  China's major threat to the U.S. comes in the form of competition for access to the remaining oil reserves of the planet. In addition to a majority of the major oil fields on the planet being in decline (such as the Burgan field in Kuwait, the North Sea, the Cantaral super-field in Mexico, and possibly Ghawar in Saudi Arabia), China has now surpassed Japan as the second highest oil consuming country, to the U.S.

According to a 2005 BBC News article, “China's global hunt for oil” China has embarked on a frenzy of oil hunting diplomacy. China's representatives rarely go anywhere without discussing oil, while in 2004, they invited dignitaries from all 11 countries in the OPEC cartel. China has also closed deals to develop fields in Iran.   James Lilley, former US ambassador to Beijing, has said "the Chinese are on an aggressive quest to increase their supply of oil all around the world", according to remarks quoted on industry website Alexander's Gas and Oil Connections. (Hennock)

 For example, according to the Forbes.com article, “Canada to Compete in Oil Market,” China's interest in Canada's tar sands has caused some consternation in Washington. In 2001 the U.S. National Energy Policy report cited the development of the tar sands as a key component of Washington's strategy to ensure a secure supply of energy.

 In this context, China's interest is seen as a potential strategic threat. At present, a pipeline stretching from the Athabasca tar sands to British Columbia is being planned to facilitate the export of tar sands oil to China. As Chinese state-run companies contemplate taking ownership stakes in the Canadian oil interests, U.S. officials are concerned that they are losing access to a reliable and relatively inexpensive source of crude oil to a rising superpower. (Oxford Analytica)

 Canada is not the only country where China is seeking access to affordable energy. Beijing has also been moving to secure access to oil supplies across Africa. Countries like Sudan and Nigeria offer access to large oil reserves, sizeable pools of low-cost labor and minimum environmental safeguards. (Hennock) 

In order to back-up its competition with the U.S. for the Earth's remaining fossil fuel reserves, China is warning the world that its military arsenal is modernizing much faster than expected and could challenge the United States for global dominance by the middle of this century. The successful, January, 2007 test of China's anti-satellite technology is a major victory for Beijing's military strategy, which aims to use high-tech weaponry and "asymmetric warfare" to bridge the gap between itself and the United States. (York)

In terms of the greatest threat China poses to the region, competition over the Straits of Malacca has to be the most important. The Straits of Malacca are located between the east coast of Sumatra and the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, stretching for about 520 miles. The narrowest breadth of the Singapore Strait is only 3.2 nautical miles and throughout its length it is constantly less than 15 miles.

The linked Straits are the shortest sea route forming the main seaway between the Indian Ocean (via the Andaman Sea) and the Pacific Ocean (via the South China Sea). It is also the shortest route for tankers trading between the Persian Gulf and East Asian countries. The Straits of Malacca are a critical and strategic waterway in the global trading system, with more than 60,000 vessels transiting its waters every year, carrying more than a quarter of world trade and almost all oil imports to Japan and China.  

According to the article “India's and China's Strategic Interests in the Straits of Malacca,” written for the Maritime Institute of Malaysia, the strategic nature of the Straits of Malacca has led many countries to want to control the Straits, or to at least project power there, including the United States, China and India. The pursuance of strategies to gain control has made the Straits of Malacca a venue of a silent struggle between rising powers. Over 40% of India's rapidly growing trade passes through the Straits of Malacca, giving it a major interest in securing the safety of shipping through this vital international waterway. Inclusion in its security would therefore be in India's national interest.

 China is heavily dependant on the Straits of Malacca for energy transportation. China's strategic significance of these straits increases every year. At present, approximately 60 percent of China's crude oil imports originate in the Middle East, and this figure is expected to rise to 75 percent by 2015. Oil from the Persian Gulf and Africa is shipped to the People's Republic of China via the Malacca or Lombok/Makkasar straits. Over the past few years Chinese leaders have come to view the straits, especially the Malacca Strait, as a strategic vulnerability. In November 2003 President Hu Jintao declared that “certain major powers” were bent on controlling the strait, and called for the adoption of new strategies to mitigate the perceived vulnerability. One Chinese leading newspaper quoted saying that “It is no exaggeration to say that whoever controls the Strait of Malacca will also have a stranglehold on the energy route of China”(China Youth Daily, June 15, 2004). (Sumathy)

 As for any threat that China would pose to the World as a whole, the most pertinent is in the form of greenhouse gas emissions. China mainly relies on fossil fuels, particularly coal, for energy. Between 1996 and 2003, oil imports increased from 20 million tons to 90 million tons. (Hepeng)

 According to the SciDev.Net article, “China is second biggest greenhouse gas emitter,” China's emissions are increasing steadily. Energy consumption in China is expected to continue rising significantly as it aims to quadruple its gross domestic product by 2020. Car ownership has increased by 30 per cent since 2002.

 Unlike developed countries, China and other developing nations that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol on climate change are not required to reduce their emissions of six greenhouse gases to below 1990 levels by 2008 to 2012. (Hepeng)

 According to China's submission to the UN, it emitted 2.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide, 34.3 million tons of methane and 850,000 tons of nitrous oxide in 1994. Lu Xuedong, an official at China's Ministry of Science and Technology, says China is “working on a national report on climate change that will detail the current situation”. The report will also describe the steps China is taking to adapt to climate change, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, says Lu, who is one of the authors of the forthcoming report. (Hepeng)

If China represents any threat at all to its neighbors, the U.S., or the world, it is due to its exponentially growing economy, which is expected to exceed that of the United States by 2020.  It is difficult to predict how China will react to threats to its continued growth, which is not currently imperial by any means, but simply economic. Internal strife could force the quasi-communist government to react in a certain way. In the case of global peak oil, which is the 'Elephant in the room” so to speak, almost no one in the U.S. government or corporate media is willing to alarm the public over this issue, which is vastly more imminent than the issue of global warming .

Works Cited

“Canada to Compete In Oil Market.” Oxford Analytica. 17 Feb. 2005.

<http://www.forbes.com/2005/02/17/cz_0217oxan_canadaoil_print.html>.

Hennock, Mary. “China's global hunt for oil”. BBC News. 9 March 2005.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4191683.stm.>

Hepeng, Jia. “China is second biggest greenhouse gas emitter.” Science and Development  Network. 24 Nov. 2004.  <http://www.scidev.net/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=readnews&itemid=1761&lan guage=1>.

Hu, Zuliu and Khan, Mohsin S.  “Why Is China Growing So Fast?” Economic Issues, #8. International Monetary Fund. June, 1997.

<http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/issues8/index.htm>.

Permal, Sumathy. “India's and China's Strategic Interests in the Straits of Malacca.” 

 Maritime Institute of Malaysia. 10 Oct. 2006

<http://www.mima.gov.my/mima/htmls/papers/pdf/sumathy/India's%20and%20China's%20Intrests%20in%20the%20Malacca%20Straits.pdf>.

York, Geoffrey. “China's anti-satellite weapon fuels anxiety”. Globeandmall.com. 22 January 2007. <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070122.CHINA22/TPStory/TPInternational/America/>.