BY EVA CHENG
Even though it was only a few years after the 1945 US nuclear attack on Japan, between 1950 and 1953, China's young Communist government, technologically miles behind the US, courageously fought alongside North Korea to repel US aggression in that country. However, the anti-imperialist edge in China's foreign policy has long been watered down.
Beijing now puts nationalism and preservation of its bureaucratic elite's rule as higher priorities than international solidarity. Since the 1980s, this trend has been exacerbated by Beijing's escalating push to re-establish capitalism in China.
Beijing has continued to turn a blind eye to Washington's escalating drive to dominate the world economically and militarily, despite this reaching breathtaking heights under George Bush's presidency, especially since 9/11.
A country doesn't have to be militarily comparable to the major powers before it can afford to take a principled stance on global justice. The government of Cuba, one of the most threatened countries in the world, has been at the forefront of opposing US aggression, for example.
Even Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammad Mahathir, himself a dictator and hardly a defender of Third World interests in practice, has, in recent years, been consistently much sharper than Beijing in condemning US imperialist actions.
On the two top international flashpoints of the day — the US war drive against Iraq and the nuclear standoff in North Korea — Beijing has reacted with cryptic and vague statements.
Bush's provocative January 2002 declaration that North Korea was, together with Iran and Iraq, part of an "axis of evil" was little less than a precursor to a declaration of war. When Pyongyang revealed its nuclear weapons capability and asserted its right of self-defence against the US bully, Washington and its allies were "terrified".
However, Beijing's response was seriously inadequate: affirming China's friendship with North Korea and advocating dialogue and "concrete actions" from all the involved parties and hinting at behind-the-scenes "diplomacy". Despite having a mutual defence pact with Pyongyang, Beijing has not given any public warnings that it would come to North Korea's assistance if the US attacked.
On Iraq, Beijing advocates solving "the problem" within the UN framework. This implies China will support a war on Iraq if the UN Security Council votes for it. Beijing has passed no independent judgement — let alone condemned — the claim that Iraq must be disarmed of alleged weapons of mass destruction, which is being used as a pretext for the US-led aggression.
An obvious point for China to make would be that the demands to destroy weapons of mass destruction shouldn't be selectively applied to Iraq, but must be extended to all, especially the US. As a holder of veto power on the UN Security Council, Beijing is in a position to make such points forcefully. But it hasn't.
Despite the Chinese regime calling itself "communist", it has not even called Washington's planned war on Iraq an act of imperialist aggression. Underlying the Bush gang's war drive is an attempt to carve out a new world order with the US ruling elite as the absolute hegemon.
Even Beijing's muted criticism of US war plans for Iraq, however, is related to the country's precarious access to oil.
That Iraq has the world's second largest proven oil reserves, 112 billion barrels, is well known. It is less well known that the US energy department estimates Iraq's "probable and possible" oil reserves at an additional 220 billion barrels, which may enable it to rival world-leader Saudi Arabia's reserves. Control of Iraq's reserve would lead to a very powerful leverage in world politics.
The Bush gang is clearly angling for that control. Not only would it enable Washington to seriously marginalise the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which has been largely, though less so now, the arbiter of world oil prices. It would also put Russia and China under the US thumb.
As the world's largest oil producer, with oil and gas accounting for two-fifths of its exports, Russia's economy is heavily dependent on world oil prices. If the US controls the prices, it can cause the Kremlin a great deal of pain.
With a quickly growing gross domestic product, China's ability to produce enough energy to meet its needs is fast falling. Though oil accounted for only 20% of its energy needs in 1996 (compared to coal's 72%), and the US Energy Information Administration says this is unlikely to change soon, that 20% can still be critical.
China became a net oil importer in 1993 and is now the third largest oil consumer in the world. It imported 400,000 barrels of oil a day in 1996, and that is expected to rise to 5.2 million barrels per day by 2020, pushing the proportion of the country's oil that is imported from 11% to 60%.
Blind competition among provinces under capitalist "reform", together with rampant corruption, has significantly increased irrational energy consumption and wastage in China. This "market" approach has made rational planning of sustainable energy sources even harder.
Despite China's attempt to diversify its oil sources, the Middle East still accounted for 61% of its oil imports in 1998, and that share is expected to increase to around 80% by 2010. The bulk of this was transported to China by sea, via the Strait of Malacca, a route closely guarded by the powerful US Navy.
Making its supply even more tenuous, China's strategic oil reserves are pitiful: even the official People's Daily indirectly admitted on October 21, 2002, that they were "almost zero". In comparison, the US has strategic oil reserves to meet its needs for six months.
While not every country is as vulnerable as China, many have significant interests at stake in the planned US attack on Iraq. In a bid to outmanoeuvre the sanctions imposed by the US and Britain, in one big hit in 1997 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sealed or began oil exploration and development negotiations with at least two dozen countries.
Oil companies from Russia, France and China were among the key winners, but they aren't able to start exploration until the sanctions are lifted. US oil companies missed out. But these mates of the Bush gang are now rubbing their hands with glee, anticipating a lion's share of future Iraqi oil at the expense of their non-US competitors.
Ahmed Chalabi of the opposition Iraq National Congress told the Washington Post as early as last September that "American companies will have a big shot at [post-Saddam] Iraqi oil".
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, March 5, 2003.
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