Cina, energia, Mo, Africa Wsws 06-05-10
Il viaggio del leader cinese in Arabia Saudita e in
Africa evidenzia la crescente competizione per le risorse
John Chan
Tesi WSWS:
Nonostante tenti di evitare lo scontro con le grandi
potenze, la Cina è soggetta alle contraddizioni capitalistiche: non può
permettersi di rallentare lo sviluppo economico anche a causa delle tensioni
sociali interne dovute alla crescente disoccupazione e all’ineguaglianza, ed è costretta perciò a conquistarsi l’accesso
a nuove fonti di materie prime. Ciò la porta inevitabilmente a entrare in
conflitto con le altre potenze.
La diplomazia energetica della Cina è stata descritta da
un consulente del ministero degli Esteri cinese come estensione del commercio e
promozione della cooperazione per l’energia, le risorse e la tecnologia»; la
strategia cinese mira a fornire progetti infrastrutturali a paesi ricchi di
risorse di MO, Africa e America Latina per facilitare e in cambio di, l’export
di minerali alla Cina.
La Cina è divenuta il
6° maggior appaltatore di infrastrutture, con $39MD., +24%, nel 2005. Ha
finanziato, e armato, regimi come il Sudan e lo Zimbabwe per proteggere i
propri interessi.
In aprile il presidente
cinese Hu Jintao si è recato in Arabia Saudita e in tre pesi africani, Marocco,
Nigeria e Kenya.
Arabia Saudita
Cina ed Arabia Saudita,
che hanno ristabilito le relazioni diplomatiche solo nel 1990, stanno avviando
più strette relazioni politiche, nella consapevolezza dell’attrito potenziale
con gli USA che considerano l’Arabia Saudita un alleato cruciale per il MO.
Hu ha brevemente
accennato al ruolo di destabilizzazione dell’intervento militare USA nella
regione: «Con la fine della guerra fredda … diverse questioni sono rimaste
insolute, e nuovi conflitti hanno generato maggiore instabilità».
Un legame più stretto
con Pechino consente all’Arabia Saudita maggiore autonomia economica e politica
da Washington.
Un esponente della
Camera di commercio saudita ha dichiarato che gli USA non devono preoccuparsi
per le nuove relazioni saudite con la Cina: «Siamo legati con un matrimonio
cattolico con l’America. Ma siamo anche musulmani – e possiamo avere più di una
moglie».
– La visita cinese in Arabia saudita è vista da USA
come un’intrusione in MO, con questione iraniana aperta e opposizione cinese a
misure punitive volute da USA.
– L’Arabia Saudita fornisce 450mila b/g di petrolio,
pari al 17% dell’import totale cinese; firmati diversi importanti accordi:
o
ampliamento
della cooperazione tra il gigante petrolifero saudita Arammo e quello cinese
Sino pec per l’esplorazione delle riserve di gas nel deserto “Empty Quarter”.
o
Avanzata
l’ipotesi di concessione alla Saudi Basic Industries Corporation di
investimenti nel N-E Cina in progetti petrolchimici per $5,3MD.
o
Promessa di
accordi di libero scambio tra Cina il Consiglio per la Cooperazione del Golfo
(GCC) da parte del suo leader, Abdul-Rahman al-Attiya.
Africa
La sosta di Hu in
Marocco ha un significato diplomatico, il Marocco è stato il secondo paese
africano dopo l’Egitto, a riconoscere formalmente la Cina.
Nigeria:
– il paese più popoloso e il maggior produttore di
petrolio dell’Africa, fornisce il 15% dell’import USA di petrolio, con crescita
prevista in un decennio al 25%.
– La visita cinese aveva come obiettivo la
conclusione di un accordo per diritti di prelazione alla Cina nell’offerta per 4 licenze di perforazione
petrolifera, due nel delta del Niger, e due nel bacino del lago Chad.
– Pechino progetta di investire $4MD nelle
infrastrutture in Nigeria, compresa una raffineria statale, una linea
ferroviaria e centrali elettriche. Due società di Tlc cinesi installeranno
servizi telefonici rurali, finanziati con $200mn di prestiti da Pechino.
– alla vigilia del viaggio di Hu, CNOOC – China
National Offshore Oil Corporation, ha acquisito per $2,7MD il 45% di un campo
petrolifero nigeriano, che dovrebbe iniziare a produrre nel 2008.
– nel 2005 la Nigeria ha concordato la fornitura
alla Cina di 30mila b/g per 5 anni a PetroChina, la maggiore società
petrolifera statale cinese, per $800mn.
Kenya:
– Firmato accordo per permesso a CNOOC di
esplorazione di 6 blocchi petroliferi al largo della costa; nel 2005 la Cina ha
fornito $36,5mn. di sovvenzioni al Kenya, per ammodernare le sue centrali
elettriche.
L’appoggio cinese a vari regimi africani sta causando tensioni con USA e
altre potenze. Sarebbe la Cina il maggiore beneficiario del tentato colpo di
Stato di aprile contro il governo del Chad, represso dalle truppe francesi,
attuato dai ribelli appoggiati dal Sudan.
Wsws 06-05-10
Chinese leader’s trip to Saudi Arabia and Africa
highlights growing resource rivalry
By John Chan
While the visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to Washington last month
received considerable media coverage, there was
virtually none for the remainder of his extended overseas tour.
–
Yet it was the rest of Hu’s trip—to Saudi
Arabia and three key African countries—that highlighted one of the chief
reasons for his chilly reception at the White House—the growing rivalry
between China and the US over oil, natural gas and other scarce resources.
–
Hu flew straight from
Washington to the Saudi
capital of Riyadh on April 22 for a three-day visit to bolster China’s
relations with the world’s largest oil exporter. Hu’s first visit to the Gulf
State came just months after Saudi King Abdullah visited Beijing—another first
for the two countries, which only established diplomatic relations in 1990.
o
Several major agreements were
signed. Among the most important
was one to extend cooperation between the giant Saudi oil company Aramco and
China’s second largest oil firm, Sinopec, in exploring huge gas reserves in the vast desert
known as the Empty Quarter.
o
Hu visited the headquarters of the Middle East’s largest
non-oil company—Saudi Basic Industries Corporation—where he discussed the
possibility of allowing it to invest in petrochemical projects to the tune of
$US5.3 billion in northeastern China.
–
Abdul-Rahman al-Attiya, the
Riyadh-based leader of the
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), also promised Hu that free trade agreements between China
and the GCC states would be signed at the end of this year.
The growing economic ties between
Beijing and the Saudi elite are based on China’s burgeoning demand for oil. In
2004, China overtook Japan as the world’s second largest oil consumer and Saudi Arabia currently supplies
about 450,000 barrels per day or 17 percent of China’s total oil imports.
At the same time, the two countries are cautiously moving
towards closer political relations, well aware of the potential for friction with
Washington. The US has long regarded the Saudi monarchy as a crucial political ally in the Middle
East and key supplier of oil. The Pentagon used the Gulf State as a base of operations for launching the
first Gulf War in 1991 against Iraq and maintains close ties with the
Saudi military.
During his trip, Hu was accorded the rare honour of addressing the
king’s Majlis as-Shura or advisory council, becoming only the second foreign leader after
French President Jacques Chirac to do so. He said that the Middle East
was vital for the world and that China was “ready to work” with Saudi Arabia. Hinting cautiously at the
destabilising role of US militarism in the region, the Chinese leader
declared: “When the Cold War ended… many hot issues remained without
resolution, and new conflicts have caused more instability”.
–
For the Saudi monarchy, closer ties with Beijing
offers the prospect loosening
of its political and economic dependence on Washington. Saudi Prince
Walid bin Talal told the New York Times on April 23: “We are opening new channels, we are heading east.
China is a big consumer of oil. Saudi Arabia needs to open new channels beyond
the West.”
Omar Bahlaiwa, a branch secretary
general of the Saudi Chamber of Commerce, declared the US should not be alarmed about Saudi’s new
relations with China. “We are in a Catholic marriage with America,” he said.
“But we are also Muslims—we can have more than one wife.”
Washington has not publicly commented on
Hu’s visit to Saudi Arabia,
but the White House will undoubtedly have regarded it as an unwelcome intrusion
in the Middle East. It came as
the Bush administration is pushing in the UN Security Council for punitive
measures against Iran over its nuclear program. China’s opposition to sanctions is a further source of
tension with Washington as each seeks to further their economic and strategic
interests in the region.
The African visits
–
From Saudi Arabia, Hu went to Africa—Morocco, Nigeria
and Kenya. The first stop in Morocco on April 24 was largely for diplomatic purposes. In 1958 the country was only the second in Africa, after
Egypt, to formally recognise China. The remaining two stops, however,
were again primarily about resources.
–
The most important was to Nigeria
on April 26—Africa’s most
populous country and largest oil producer, centrally located in the oil-rich
Gulf of Guinea. The region is currently supplying 15 percent of US oil imports and the proportion is
expected rise to 25 percent within a decade.
–
Speaking before the Nigerian
National Assembly, Hu called
for the establishment of a “strategic partnership” between China and Africa.
The visit was to finalise a
deal for China’s preferential rights in bidding for four oil drilling licenses—two
in the oil-rich Niger delta and two in the largely untapped Lake Chad
basin.
–
Beijing plans to invest $4 billion in Nigeria’s infrastructure,
including a Nigerian state-run oil
refinery, a railway line and power plants. Two Chinese telecommunication companies will install
rural telephone services financed by $200 million in loans from Beijing.
–
On the eve of Hu’s visit, the China National Offshore Oil
Corporation (CNOOC) paid $2.7
billion for a 45 percent stake in a Nigerian oil field due to start
production in 2008.
–
Last year, Nigeria agreed to provide 30,000
barrels of oil per day for five years to China’s largest state-owned oil
company, PetroChina, in
a deal worth $800 million.
–
Oil was also top of the agenda in Kenya on April 27-30. In Nairobi, the Chinese president signed an
agreement for licenses to
allow CNOOC to explore
six possible oil blocks off the coast of Kenya. Last year, China provided $36.5 million in aid to
Kenya, mainly to upgrade its power stations.
China’s deals with Nigeria and Kenya, as
well as other African countries, are direct challenges to the traditional domination of the continent’s
oil by American and European
companies. (See Western concern at China’s growing involvement in
Africa)
China’s energy diplomacy was spelled out by Yang Peidong, a foreign
ministry consultant, in a recent edition of China Economic Weekly.
Beijing is now focusing on “the extension of trade and the promotion of
energy, resources and technology cooperation” as the heart of China’s foreign
policy, he wrote.
–
China’s strategy is to offer infrastructure projects to the
resource-rich countries in Middle
East, Africa and Latin America to facilitate, and in exchange for, the
export of minerals to China.
–
China is now the world’s sixth largest engineering
contractor, with its new contracts up 24 percent to $39 billion last year.
In some cases, China has also
financed and even armed regimes, such as in Sudan and Zimbabwe, in order
to protect its resource interests.
In comments to Reuters during Hu’s
visit, former Nigerian foreign minister Bolaji Akinyemi attempted to play down
possible tensions with Washington. “In the Middle East, the US regards China’s
incursion with alarm, but Nigeria is more virgin territory for suitors and
Washington should not be too worried,” he said.
The Bush administration, however, regards China’s moves in Africa as far
from benign. Its recently published National Security
Strategy openly states US concerns over China as “expanding trade, but acting
as if they can somehow ‘lock up’ energy supplies around the world or seek to
direct markets rather than opening them up—as if they can follow a mercantilism
borrowed from a discredited era; and … supporting resource-rich countries
without regard to their misrule at home or misbehaviour abroad of those
regimes.”
–
China’s support for various
African regimes is generating sharp tensions with the US and other major
powers. Just prior to Hu’s arrival in Africa, the Western media have expressed fears that China would be
the greatest beneficiary of the attempted coup in April by Sudanese-backed
rebels against the government of Chad. At present, China has no share in
Chad’s oil and the current regime recognises Taiwan, not China. French troops suppressed the
rebellion.
–
Beijing’s activities in Africa have been carried out under
the diplomatic banner of China’s “peaceful rise”. The
doctrine was developed under the Hu leadership to counter accusations by the
US, Japan and even European countries that China’s economic emergence is a
threat. In essence, China is
seeking to avoid confrontations with the major powers, while quietly pursuing
its economic interests internationally.
–
This strategy is fraught with
contradictions, however. Facing
growing unrest caused by unemployment and social inequality at home, Beijing
cannot afford any slowdown in economic growth. It is driven to expand production and thus to gain
access to new sources of raw materials, particularly oil, and new markets.
Inevitably, despite is “peaceful rise” diplomacy, China is coming into conflict
with the US, Japan and the European powers in Africa, the Middle East, Latin
America and other regions.
Just two weeks before Hu’s visit to
Washington, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice bluntly summed up the
growing global competition for resources before the US Senate Foreign Relations
Committee on April 5. “I can
tell you that nothing has really taken me aback more as secretary of state than
the way that the politics of energy is—I will use the word warping—diplomacy
around the world,” she declared.
“It is sending some states that are growing very rapidly in an all-out
search for energy—states like China, states like India—that is, really sending
them into parts of the world where they’ve not been seen before, and
challenging, I think, for our diplomacy,” Rice added.
The Bush administration invaded Iraq to
secure US domination over its oil supplies and is mounting a campaign against
Iran to further US economic and strategic ambitions in the Middle East. There
is no doubt that Washington will respond just as aggressively to any challenges
by China to US interests in the key strategic regions of the globe.