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Advisory panel urges China military, energy ties
By Foster Klug The Associated Press
A congressional advisory panel examining U.S.-China relations is urging lawmakers to kick-start efforts at energy and military cooperation with China and to respond more aggressively to that country’s dramatic rise to power.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission made 57 recommendations to Congress about how to deal with China in a report being released Nov. 9. The panel paid particular attention to what it saw as China’s dogged quest for oil and its “methodical and accelerating military modernization” and influence in Asia.
The panel, which Congress created in 2000, provided two “bold initiatives to engage the Chinese” in energy and security cooperation, said chairman Richard D’Amato.
With its economy booming, China is striving to meet its enormous energy needs by intensifying ties to major energy-producing countries and seeking to buy a wide array of foreign oil and natural gas assets.
China’s attempt to corner oil markets outside the international marketplace, and occasionally in countries with poor human rights records, “threatens to exacerbate tensions with the United States and other countries that are market participants,” the report said.
In a recent example, strong opposition in Congress helped block a bid by a state-controlled Chinese company to buy California’s Unocal Corp., with lawmakers claiming the sale could threaten U.S. national security. Failed bid for Unocal at play The panel urged Congress to mandate creation of a U.S.-China energy working group comprising top-level government and industry officials from both countries, who would try to find ways to work together “for mutual benefit on energy issues,” including a search for alternative fuel technologies.
China also should be encouraged to abandon its policy of acquiring oil “in a mercantilist fashion,” the report said, noting the Unocal bid exemplified China’s policy of bypassing international markets in its search for energy.
Messages left with the Chinese Embassy seeking comment Nov. 8 weren’t returned.
Ralph Cossa, president of the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies, said China might see a level of hypocrisy in the report’s comments on the failed bid for Unocal.
China might say, “Don’t tell us on the one hand to play by global rules and invest in the marketplace and be good capitalists, and then on the other say don’t buy any companies in the United States,” Cossa said. “We need to make sure that our own windows are clean when we start talking about Chinese economic practices.”
The report also focused on security and made a recommendation that lawmakers should pass legislation instructing President George W. Bush to start discussions with China about procedures for what to do during a possible contact between the U.S. and Chinese military forces as the two powers operate, often at close quarters, in Asia.
Generals from both sides, the report said, should meet and talk, and hot lines should be set up linking officials from the two defense agencies.
Other recommendations in the report included:
• The president should use an executive order to freeze the assets of Chinese firms involved in the sale of nuclear weapons.
• Congress should consider imposing a tariff on all Chinese imports to get China to further strengthen the value of its currency; the report says China’s weak currency acts as a subsidy for Chinese exports to the United States and as a tax on imports from the United States.
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