China and the Dark Continent

In this case, Africa is a dark continent because it is black with petroleum. China is pursuing oil deals in Africa with determination, as I mentioned here. In that post I mentioned a Chinese oil company will start drilling the first exploratory well in the Gambela basin, in western Ethiopia.

There are other developments worth noting.

Liberia, China Sign US$247,000 Agreement

The People's Republic of China has again committed itself to helping Liberia in rehabilitating major roads in the rather old-fashioned City of Monrovia.

China to Make Liberia Self-Sufficient in Food

The government of the People's Republic of China says its concern at this point in time is to make Liberia self-sufficient in food production. The Chinese Government's commitment to making Liberia sufficient in food production was made by its Ambassador to Liberia, Lin Songtian.

What is China trying to buy with such acts of beneficence? The State Dept says about Liberia:

Natural resources: Iron ore, rubber, timber, diamonds, gold and tin. The Government of Liberia has reported in recent years that it has discovered sizable deposits of crude oil along its Atlantic Coast.

In Niger,

China grants $3.72 mln in aid to Niger

China signed a pact with Niger on Friday and agreed to grant the African country 30 million RMB (about 3.72 million U.S. dollars) in aid, according to news reports from Niger's capital Niamey. The agreement was signed by Chinese Ambassador to Niger Chen Gonglai and Niger's acting Foreign Minister and Defense Minister Hassane Souley Dit Bonto.

The State Dept says this about Niger:

Niger has oil potential. In 1992, the Djado permit was awarded to Hunt Oil, and in 2003 the Tenere permit was awarded to the China National Petroleum Company. An ExxonMobil-Petronas joint venture now holds the sole rights to the Agadem block, north of Lake Chad, and oil exploration is ongoing.

Angola's oil industry is growing, and China is there as well, greasing the skids.

Angola's Giant Leap On World Economic Stage

The long-awaited rehabilitation of the country's roads and railways has now started in earnest, largely as a result of a $2bn loan from the Chinese government. Chinese nationals and Chinese businesses are becoming increasingly visible in Angola.

Nigeria is the huge oil producer, and not surprisingly, China is there. I can't summarize everything China is doing there, but here is a taste.

China and Nigeria signed five economic agreements Thursday night, promising to upgrade their relations to a "strategic partnership."

The five agreements, covering investment, telecommunication service and technical cooperation, were signed after an hour-long talk between President Hu Jintao and Nigeria President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is in China for a four-day state visit.

China and Nigeria set up full diplomatic ties in 1971 and the trade volume between the two countries reached US$2.18 billion. Nigeria is now China's second largest export market and fourth largest trade partner in Africa.

This article from the Sydney Morning Herald sums up nicely what China is doing in Africa.

The Chinese, sensing Africa's immense potential, are making strategic economic inroads into a continent that, outside of oil investments, has long been written off by most Western companies as too risky because of poor governance or the threat of conflict.

"China is competing for anything and everything," said Dianna Games, a South African political analyst who studies business trends in sub-Saharan Africa. "They know Africa is wide open to them."

In the last several years, China has either struck oil deals or built on existing ones in Angola, Algeria, Chad, Sudan, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Nigeria. More than half of Sudan's oil exports go to China, accounting for roughly 5 per cent of its imports.

China is competing for resources. How will the United States respond? Unless we are willing to accept significant declines in our standard of living, it is a fact that we are dependent on energy supplies. From fuel for our transportation system, to petroluem products in industry and manufacturing, petroleum is a necessity.

A strategic approach to securing our energy supplies is a vital component of our national security. It is pie-in-the-sky to decry energy companies as greedy money machines. They play a role in our national interests. We ought to be concerned about where and how the United States is involved worldwide in petroleum deals.

I saw the movie Syriana over the weekend. I thought it was excellent. It deftly portrayed the importance nations place on oil. Part of the plot involved a Chinese oil deal.

*SPOILER ALERT*

I did think some aspects of the movie were silly. For instance, the United States would not blow up the brother of the ruler of an oil-producing nation, a brother that was seeking to become ruler himself. The US certainly wouldn't do it by blowing up a vehicle by missile. You just don't do something like that without leaving obvious fingerprints around.

On the whole though, a movie worth seeing. If it seems likes the movie Traffic, it's because they share the same writer, and the director of Traffic, Steven Soderbergh, has an executive producer credit for Syriana. Both weave several related plot lines, and both show how events effect the little people working at levels invisible to the major players. However, I didn't much care for Traffic. I vastly preferred the series it was based on, Traffik.