OIL WAR! Japan VS China

[Taro Toporific]

The Undeclared Oil War
Monday, June 28, 2004; Page A21 /
WashingtonPost.com WARNING: cancer-causing registration required required
For months China and Japan have been locked in a diplomatic battle over access to the big oil fields in Siberia. Japan, which depends entirely on imported oil, is desperately lobbying Moscow for a 2,300-mile pipeline from Siberia to coastal Japan. But fast-growing China, now the world's second-largest oil user, after the United States, sees Russian oil as vital for its own "energy security" and is pushing for a 1,400-mile pipeline south to Daqing.
The petro-rivalry has become so intense that Japan has offered to finance the $5 billion pipeline, invest $7 billion in development of Siberian oil fields and throw in an additional $2 billion for Russian "social projects" -- this despite the certainty that if Japan does win Russia's oil, relations between Tokyo and Beijing may sink to their lowest, potentially most dangerous, levels since World War II. ...

[ibiza]

The Undeclared Oil War
[url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10714-2004Jun27.html]Monday, June 28, 2004]
For months China and Japan have been locked in a diplomatic battle over access to the big oil fields in Siberia. Japan, which depends entirely on imported oil, is desperately lobbying Moscow for a 2,300-mile pipeline from Siberia to coastal Japan. But fast-growing China, now the world's second-largest oil user, after the United States, sees Russian oil as vital for its own "energy security" and is pushing for a 1,400-mile pipeline south to Daqing.
The petro-rivalry has become so intense that Japan has offered to finance the $5 billion pipeline, invest $7 billion in development of Siberian oil fields and throw in an additional $2 billion for Russian "social projects" -- this despite the certainty that if Japan does win Russia's oil, relations between Tokyo and Beijing may sink to their lowest, potentially most dangerous, levels since World War II. ...

And if Beijin wins, everything will be just peachy?

Japan needs to hike up it's skirt, grow some balls, and start playing hardball like the rest of the world.

I forsee another major war. This time over oil. It's gonna be The US, Japan, England and a handful of other countries against China, North Korea, and Iran.

[Big Booger]

Why not switch to alternate forms of energy and dump all that money they'd waste on an oil pipe into some R&D for Hdyrogen power, solar power, cold fusion and so on?

[Unspoken]

Because oil is a sure thing, and too many businesses/civilians rely on it to just quit cold-turkey. Even if spending all that money on research into alternate energy sources was a guranteed success, the end product still wouldn't be able to immediately replace oil. Replacing petrolium based mechanisms is not like putting a different set of AA batteries into your walkman, so we won't be seeing photovoltaics taking over any time soon.

[cstaylor]

Because oil is a sure thing, and too many businesses/civilians rely on it to just quit cold-turkey. Even if spending all that money on research into alternate energy sources was a guranteed success, the end product still wouldn't be able to immediately replace oil. Replacing petrolium based mechanisms is not like putting a different set of AA batteries into your walkman, so we won't be seeing photovoltaics taking over any time soon.

It's difficult to beat the portability of liquid hydrocarbons like gasoline.

[Taro Toporific]

The Undeclared Oil War
Monday, June 28, 2004]...

UPDATE:


Japan to Begin Search for Natural Gas[url=http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040706/ap_on_bi_ge/japan_china_gas_1]
Tue Jul 6,10:01 AM ET / Associated Press
TOKYO -Japan will launch a $27.5 million project this week to explore the East China Sea bed for natural gas, an official said Tuesday, an undertaking that would put Tokyo in direct competition with neighboring China for potential offshore gas deposits.
Japanese officials have grown increasingly worried that China's undersea drilling might draw gas from the Japanese side....
... China, the world's No. 2 oil consumer behind the United States, has intensified its own efforts to develop resources and has boosted energy imports to meet the growing energy needs of its fast-growing economy.
Last week, China said it was "gravely concerned" about Japan's plan to search for gas, and warned Tokyo not to take "any action that may imperil China's interest and complicate the current situation."
....apan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. will use sonic waves and other methods to research the subseafloor structure along 19 miles of the disputed sea border, an official at Japan's Natural Resources and Energy Agency said.
The project, in an area northwest of Japan's southernmost island of Okinawa, will last three months, said the official, who refused to be identified.
The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea allows coastal countries to regulate catch and seabed resources in an economic zone extending 230 miles from their shores.
But Beijing and Tokyo, both of which signed the convention in 1996, have not agreed where their sea border lies.

[GomiGirl]

Japan to Begin Search for Natural Gas

Look no further...

FG to the rescue

[Socratesabroad]

Japan needs to hike up it's skirt, grow some balls, and start playing hardball like the rest of the world.

Problem is, it's hard to play hardball when all the neighborhood kids are bigger (China) or not as keen to play by the rules (North Korea).

And if Japan did allocate spending for defense commensurate to the potential threats in the vicinity the economic recovery that everyone's now touting would soon vanish...