China and Venezuela: Equity Oil and Political Risk By Matt Ferchen

China and Venezuela: Equity Oil and Political Risk

By Matt Ferchen

Referring to the evolving political crisis in Venezuela, a Shanghai Academy of Social Science scholar, Zhang Jiazhe, recently remarked, if Hugo Chavez dies, “the diplomatic effect on China won’t be large because China-U.S. competition is in Asia not Latin America. Economically, China-Venezuela relations are based on oil and weapons sales” (Global Times, January 6). Back in 2006 Beijing University Professor Zha Daojiong, however, sounded a more skeptical note when he wrote “The search for overseas oil supplies has led Beijing to pursue close diplomatic ties with Iran, Sudan, Uzbekistan and Venezuela—all countries that pursue questionable domestic policies and…foreign policies.” These two different Chinese foreign policy perspectives highlight an ongoing debate—and not only inside of China—about how Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE) pursuit of global energy supplies was or was not leading China into unwanted and unhealthy foreign entanglements.

 

READ MOREhttp://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=40404&tx_ttnews[backPid]=25&cHash=2e08c7cc8d9d8800992a35c4003bad7a