.......As The US And China Face Off Over Oil Supplies

In 2004, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, also known as Sinopec, became one of just five companies to win the right to explore for natural gas in the desert known as the Empty Quarter, edging out US companies interested in the area. The kingdom has invested in Chinese refinery projects, and in January, Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz visited Mr Hu in Beijing. "Saudi Arabia is taking a Chinese wife," said Chas Freeman, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia who has extensive diplomatic experience in China. "The Saudis are not divorcing us. In Islam, you can have more than one wife and they can manage that." But can the US? Many US policymakers are nervous about China's quest for energy supplies. "I can tell you that nothing has really taken me aback more as secretary of state than the way that the politics of energy is - I will use the word 'warping' - diplomacy around the world," said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 5. "It is sending some states that are growing very rapidly in an all-out search for energy - states like China, states like India - that is, really sending them into parts of the world where they've not been seen before. And challenging, I think, for our diplomacy." China is nervous about the US too. The vociferous opposition in Congress last northern summer to the bid by China National Offshore Oil Co. to buy Unocal has left sore feelings in China, according to Xiao Lian, director of the Centre for American Economic Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Mr Xiao said Chinese military strategists were also concerned that the US might try to block oil supplies in a dust-up over Taiwan, which Beijing claims is part of China. http://afr.com/articles/2006/04/19/1145344146402.html [Proofreader’s note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on April 21, 2006]

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