The competition between China and Japan for energy becomes apparent
Last Updated(Beijing Time):2004-07-02 09:43
By Zhong Jing
After the contest between China and Japan for energy sources in Siberia and the East Sea, the strategic competition of oil strategic between the two countries seems to present an increasing trend.
Thailand always intends to build a canal in the Isthmus of Kra located to the north of Malacca Strait and in the narrowest part of the land of Indo-China Peninsula. The canal will straightly connect the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean, so that oil tankers are able to directly reach Gulf of Thailand in the Pacific Ocean from the Andaman Sea to the west of Thailand. Thus, the canal can replace the role of Malacca Strait as the world's third largest oil trading hub.
In the recent discussion over the project of the Isthmus of Kra, Chinese side showed active profile to some extent. As revealed by Lu Shijie, the Chief Representative of China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation in Bangkok, the corporation's vice president Li Hui recently lobbied Japanese and Korean oil corporations to jointly invest in this project.
Japan is another enthusiast for the canal in the Isthmus of Kra. Though cooperation under the framework of 'Northeast Asia Energy Forum' has been mentioned, pragmatic Japanese insiders of business circles claim that cooperation may be possible in the aspects of energy research and development and environmental protection, while competition is inevitable in terms of energy exploration and occupation.
With the year-on-year proliferation of China's oil import, the international competition for oil resources becomes more complicated and sharper. Particularly, a severe situation of more competition than cooperation is being formed between China and Japan as two big energy consumers.
Such situation is determined by Japan's positioning of the Sino-Japan relationship in its diplomatic strategies. 'Join the US, Curb China' has become one of the mainstays of Japan's basic diplomatic strategies in the 21st century. Japan's strategic intention is reflected by its maintaining overwhelming advantages over China in technologies and excluding the item of strengthening China's military power from Japanese government's economic aid. In addition, setting barriers on the exploitation and import of resources like oil also plays a role in impeding China's economic development and hence curbing China. An example of this situation is the contest between the two routes of the oil pipeline for which China and Japan are striving respectively, one is from Russia's Angarsk to Northeast China's Daqing, and the other one is from Angarsk to Russia's Nakhodka.
While China just starts its energy diplomacy, Japan has accumulated plenty of experiences in this aspect. As Japan is short of energy resources, it has already attached the most prior importance on the stable supply of energy in its economic security strategies, and made great efforts on it. At present, Japan has had oil reserves for 169 days' usage. For the unremitting pursuing of the diversification of energy supply, Japan is willing to invest and is good at operation.
In order to obtain the exploitation right of oil resources, Japan has already performed various profit seductions to local governments of Russia's coastal and border areas and Sakhalin State. So in the light of the choice between Chinese project and Japanese project, the local governments of coastal and border areas stand firmly by Japanese side. It is undoubtedly the result of Japan's offering petty favors to Russia while aiming at bigger interests.
The close economic relationship between China and Japan results from the irreplaceable complementarity between the two countries. However, this kind of complementary relationship does not exist in the aspect of energy resources like oil. In fact, the two countries both need to guarantee the acquisition of the 'black gold' through various ways. Therefore, Japan positions China as its rival rather than partner in the light of natural resources like oil. The Sino-Japanese competition for oil resources on a global scale thus comes into being naturally.
Regarding the guarantee of economic security, Japan would rather cooperate with the oil capital holders of Europe and the US than choose China as its partner.
Besides the contest for oil pipelines, the straight competition also occurs between China and Japan in the aspect of overseas acquisition of oil fields. In the Indonesian Tangguh Liquefied Natural Gas Project performing preemptive shareholding, the rival of China National Offshore Oil Corporation is Japan's well-known Mitsui & Co., Ltd.
The official of Japan Defense Agency even claims that "the date when China employs its navy to exploit natural gas in Japan's sea area is not far. Japan will keep a close eye on China's exploitation activities to ensure that Japanese interests are not infringed". In fact, Japan's economic sea area is delimited by itself, and has not been widely accepted by the international community. The oil field exploited by China does not belong to the economic sea area that Japan itself delimits.
Source:CE.cn
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