The U.S. and China are over a barrel

In the costly competition for oil, cooperation is the wisest course.
by Michael Klare

This Opinions piece was originally published in the 4/28/08 edition of the Los Angeles Times. Please click Here to read the article in its entirety.

Among the many reasons given for the recent surge in gas prices is China's soaring demand for petroleum. Because the Chinese are running around the world buying up every available barrel of oil, the argument goes, we Americans have to pay that much more to outbid them for the leftover pools of crude. And the fact that the Chinese yuan has been growing stronger while the American dollar is shrinking in value has only exacerbated the problem.

Unquestionably, there's some truth to this. China's consumption of oil rose from about 4.2 million barrels a day in 1997 to 7.8 million barrels in 2007, an increase of 86%, the U.S. Department of Energy reported earlier this year. More to the point, the percentage of this oil that had to be imported grew even more. In 1997, China supplied all but 1 million barrels of the oil it consumed each day from domestic fields; by 2007, the shortfall between domestic output and consumption had jumped to 4 million barrels, all of which had to be imported.

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