Radar: US and China go bump in the Middle East

O "ataque" da China ao petróleo do Médio Oriente.

For China these days it seems that nothing - not rising energy prices; not sanctions aimed at its more unsavory business partners, Myanmar and Sudan; not even the prospect of a nuclear Iran - can curb its thirst for oil.

As China's energy needs grow at a rate higher than any other country's, so too have its economic relationships with the oil-producing nations of the Gulf. Like the US more than 60 years ago, China today is seen as a new and commercially refreshing player, happily unsentimental and - crucially - disinterested in the internal affairs of the region.

As Adbulaziz Sager of the Gulf Research Center notes, "The chief advantage of China's role in the region is its lack of political baggage."

Artigo completo no Asia Times

Relacionado com o artigo, o lançamento do livro: The Vital Triangle: China, the United States, and the Middle East do Center for Strategic and International Studies. Disponível no site: CSIS

Resumo da obra:

This volume explores the complex interrelationships among China, the United States, and the Middle East—what the authors call the "vital triangle." There is surely much to be gained from continuing the conventional two-dimensional analysis—China and the United States, the United States and the Middle East, and China and the Middle East. Such scholarship has a long history and no doubt a long future. But it is the three-dimensional equation—which seeks to understand the effects of the China–Middle East relationship on the United States, the U.S.–Middle East relationship on China, and the Sino-American relationship on the Middle East—that draws the authors' attention. This approach captures the true dynamics of change in world affairs and the spiraling up and down of national interests. Central to this analysis is a belief that if any one of the three sides of this triangular relationship is unhappy, it has the power to make the other two unhappy as well. The stakes and the intimacy of the interrelationship highlight not only the importance of reaching accommodation, but also the potential payoff of agreement on common purpose.