We are protecting the Gulf so that the Chinese can be assured of oil. If we are going to run a protection racket, we should be paid for it.
Saudi Arabia already is China's biggest source of oil
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
WORLD NEWS: "U.S. Urges Arab States to Lift Oil Exports to China," by Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, 19 October 2009. online.wsj.com
Chart says it all: Saudi Arabia is #1 with 740k bpd (barrels per day), then Iran with 544, then Angola with 451, Russia with 299, Oman with 275, Sudan with 217, Kuwait with 171, Congo with 115, Kazakhstan with 37 and Libya with 33. Why we push Arab (not Persian) states to increase exports to China is to convince Beijing that isolating Iran won't cost them supplies. The UAE, for example, recently agreed to triple or quadruple its current flow of 50k bpd. But this is why the effort will fail: China fears that sanctions leading to conflict will destabilize the region and put all these sources at risk. So this is a shuffling-the-deck-chairs-on-the-Titanic effort as far as Beijing is concerned. Plus, given China's huge needs, it simply refuses to give up its Iranian ties just because the Americans--always fickle on these things--say to do so right now. |
