From China Security (Summer 2007):
The expanding footprint in Africa of China’s national oil companies (NOCs) lies at the heart of concerns of many policy-makers and pundits in the United States and Europe. China’s deepening engagement with Africa is viewed as an erosion of their own interests and influence on the continent. The conventional wisdom about China’s NOCs in Africa has two parts. It sees the companies prevailing in the competition to gain access to African oil as part of a highly-coordinated government strategy to ensure that China’s burgeoning demand for oil is satisfied. Moreover, it is alleged that this strategy does more than just secure oil for Chinese markets it also undermines American and European efforts to maintain a level playing field for foreign investors, promote good governance and punish regimes that egregiously violate human rights. [Full Text]
Erica S. Downs is a China Energy Fellow at The Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center. Read also Assessing China’s Growing Influence in Africa by Bates Gill, Chin-hao Huang and J. Stephen Morrison, The Balancing Act of China’s Africa Policy by He Wenping (Ë¥∫ÊñáËêç) and Oil and China and Africa: Policies and Challenges by Li Anshan (ÊùéÂÆâ±±) from the latest issue of China Security.
