Growing Oil Needs Spark Potential Cooperation between the United States and China
By Tara Fehr
WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 – As leading consumers of oil, the United States and China face friction in the global competition for that natural resource, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting Wednesday morning.
“It is time not only to recognize the similarities of our oil dependency status and the direction competition may take us, but to begin to talk more directly about this growing global competition for oil, so we can help develop national policy and cooperative international policy,” Sen. Lieberman said.
According to the Energy Information Administration, the United States consumed 20.7 million barrels of oil a day in 2004, the most of any country, followed by China at 6.5 million barrels a day. In 2004 the U.S. imported 12.1 million barrels a day and China imported 2.9 million barrels a day. By 2025, the number of barrels imported by China is projected to triple.
This past year both countries have made a cooperative effort to resolve the growing energy problem, including the U.S. Department of Energy adding a new office in Beijing.
China has taken several steps to attain more energy resources: negotiating with Russia for pipelines, entering military basing agreements with countries in the Middle East, signing energy contracts with Iran and Sudan and energy contracts with Latin American countries, actions which Lieberman said would sound reasonable from a Chinese point of view.
“The U.S. has a responsibility to take its own steps to get our hunger for oil under control,” Lieberman said.
And to a degree it has, according to another speaker, William Martin, a former National Security Council and Energy Department official who now chairs Washington Policy and Analysis Inc. For example, the United States is a member of the International Energy Agency, which focuses on climate change policies, market reform, energy technology collaboration and outreach to the rest of the world. China is not a member of the agency.
“If I’m China and I’m looking around the world I am terrified,” Martin said.
But Lieberman said that each nation is just acting on its own national interests, which is why the countries must find alternative energy sources. Lieberman suggested that the future could include electric cars.
“We plug in our cell phones and blackberries every night, why not other things?” Lieberman asked.
Lieberman said he was hopeful that the United States will be able to cooperate with China, but was still concerned of the consequences if the countries do not.
“When both nations that are potentially combative have the opportunity to win without fighting, . fighting would be a tragic failure of foresight and leadership,” Lieberman said.
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