citizen x isnt the only one stirring (after a week off.. letting the world catch up)
NO!
With 1.2 billion people, the People’s Republic of China is the world’s most populous country
and third largest oil consumer, behind the U.S. and Japan.
In recent years, China has been undergoing a process of industrialization and is one of the fastest growing economies in the world.
With real gross domestic product growing at a rate of 7% a year,
China requires increasing amounts of oil to sustain its economic development.

Its oil consumption grows by 7.5% per year, seven times faster than the U.S.’
Growth in Chinese oil consumption has accelerated mainly because of
a large-scale transition away from bicycles and mass transit toward private automobiles,
more affordable since China’s admission to the World Trade Organization.
Consequently, by year 2010 China is expected to have 90 times more cars than in 1990.
With automobile numbers growing at 19% a year, projections show that China could surpass the total number of cars in the U.S. by 2030.
Another contributor to the sharp increase in automobile sales is the very low price of gasoline in China.
Chinese gasoline prices now rank among the lowest in the world for oil-importing countries,
and are a third of retail prices in Europe and Japan, where steep taxes are imposed to discourage gasoline use.

Where will China get its oil?
Though during the 1970s and 80s China was a net oil exporter,
it became a net oil importer in 1993 and is growingly dependent on foreign oil.
China currently imports 32% of its oil and
is expected to double its need for imported oil between now and 2010 and become the second largest world oil consumer.
A report by the International Energy Agency predicted that by 2030, Chinese oil imports will equal imports by the U.S. today.

China’s expectation of growing future dependence on oil imports
has brought it to acquire interests in exploration and production in places like Kazakhstan, Russia, Venezuela, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Peru, and Azerbaijan.
But despite its efforts to diversify its sources, China has become increasingly dependent on Middle East oil.
Today, 58% of China’s oil imports come from the region. By 2015, the share of Middle East oil will stand on 70%.
Though historically China has had no long-standing strategic interests in the Middle East,
its relationship with the region from where most of its oil comes is becoming increasingly important.

Implications for U.S.-China relations
U.S.-China relations are influenced by a wide array of issues from Taiwan to trade relations and human rights.
But undoubtedly access to Middle East oil will become a key issue in the relations between the two powers.
Clearly, in the short term,
China recognizes that its energy security is increasingly dependent on cooperation with the U.S., rather than competition with it.
China would like to maintain good relations with the U.S. and enjoy the economic benefits derived from such cooperation.
But this inclination is balanced by the feeling among many Chinese leaders
that the U.S. seeks to dominate the Persian Gulf in order to exercise control over its energy resources
and that it tries to contain China’s aspirations in the region.
The U.S. is therefore considered a major threat to China’s long-term energy security.
Although China is banking on oil development projects outside the Middle East,
Beijing most likely will insist on nurturing its relations with the main oil-producing states in that region as an insurance policy.
But its attempts to gain a foothold in the Middle East
and build up a long-term strategic links with countries hostile to the U.S. could also bear heavily on U.S.-China relations.
Especially troubling are China’s arms sales to the region, its support of state sponsors of terrorism and its proliferation of dual use technology.
A report by the U.S.-China Security Review Commission, a group created by Congress, warned
that China’s increasing need for imported energy has given it an incentive to become closer to countries supporting terrorism like Iran, Iraq and Sudan:
“A key driver in China’s relations with terrorist-sponsoring governments is its dependence on foreign oil to fuel its economic development.
This dependency is expected to increase over the coming decade.”
China’s relations with state sponsors of terrorism has provided these countries a great deal of money,
allowing them to continue to harbor terrorist organizations and to maintain a policy of oppression and exploitation of their people.
China’s cooperation with terrorist-sponsoring states has also helped create
a group of nations with the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction and the ballistic missiles to deliver them.
China is known to be a provider of such technologies to rouge states including North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Sudan.
China is Iran’s number one supplier of unconventional arms.
It negotiated deals to supply Iran with equipment and technology useful for making nuclear, chemical and biological weapons,
despite having signed international agreements prohibiting the proliferation of such technologies.
This arms trafficking presents an increasing threat to U.S. global security interests, particularly in the Middle East and Asia.

China also provides conventional weapons that could threaten U.S. military forces securing the Persian Gulf.
Of particular concern are China’s sales to Iran of anti-ship cruise missiles,
which pose a threat to oil tanker traffic and American naval vessels operating there.
It also provided Iraq its anti-aircraft radar system as well as fiber optic communication system,
both of which could make America’s war with Iraq more difficult.

A key component of China’s strategy to guarantee access to Persian Gulf oil is the special relations it has cultivated with Saudi Arabia.
The ties with Riyadh go back to the mid-1980s when China sold Saudi Arabia intermediate range ballistic missiles.
Since then, the relations have grown closer.
High-level visits of Chinese leaders to Saudi Arabia culminated in 1999
with President Jiang Zemin’s state visit in which he pronounced a “strategic oil partnership” between the two countries.
China has offered to sell the Saudis intercontinental ballistic missiles with a range of up to 5,500 km.
The Saudis have so far preferred to turn down many of the proposals
and limit their procurement from China in order to maintain their special relations with the U.S.
But continuous deterioration in Saudi-American relations or, in the longer run, a regime change in the oil kingdom,
could drive the Saudis to end their reliance on the U.S. as the sole guarantor of their regime’s security and offer China an expanded role.