CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VIII (2) ContEurVIII2 | Page 73

ARAM ABAJYAN
China's energy drive and the United States
In the 1990s, many Chinese were hoping that the country’s
relations with the United States could be transformed from a ‘geopolitical
alignment’ into an economic partnership. These hopes were related to
Beijing’s much needed economic reforms and modernization programs.
Washington’s huge potential for providing China with capital, markets,
advanced technology, and scientific know-how were viewed as
significant opportunities. 25
Other significant issues were the US victory in the Gulf region and
the global international transformation from a bipolar to a unipolar world
centered on the United States, China’s further steps in the strategically
and economically significant Gulf region, and the possible developments
of Sino-American regional collaboration. Finally, the most important
issue was the policies and strategies China had to adopt while dealing
with the only emerging superpower in the world, the United States. 26
Time changed things, and the Gulf region, together with its huge
energy resources, started to attract China too much. While continuing to
deepen its cooperative ties with the Gulf States, China was ready for even
more direct competition with the United States to ensure its presence and
influence there. Initially, Beijing passively accepted the US dominance in
the region, but it was taking serious steps to participate in the control of
vital energy resources, therefore posing critical challenges to US interests
in the Gulf. Chinese leaders were doing everything they could to access
oil and gas resources beyond China’s borders. Hence, Beijing’s search for
oil in a true sense made it a new competitor for influence in the Middle
East, especially when the oil-rich Gulf region became significantly
attractive. China’s involvement in the Middle East over this period
expanded politically, economically, and strategically. 27
Thus, China’s energy security policy and its search for oil ‘found’
the Middle East, making the country a new competitor to the United
States for global influence in the region. China’s growing ‘oil appetite’
could have generated China-US bilateral friction, while US strategic
interests in the region were damaged. China’s involvement in the Middle
East and its drive for energy already could be viewed as the reason for

25
Alice Schuster, “A Scenario for the future: Communist China and the Middle East,”
World Futures. The Journal of New Paradigm Research 20 no. 3–4, 201.
26 Harry Harding, “China’s American Dilemma,” The Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science Vol. 519 (1), China’s Foreign Relations, 1992, 18.
27 Leverett and Bader, “Managing China-U.S.,” 187.
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