China, Darfur, Oil, America...

While I won’t share a lot of what I am learning in class, I did find my culture and transformation class particularly interesting and worth sharing about the connection of China, Darfur, and Oil.

If you didn’t know, China is the next world superpower. While we are busy fighting in the Middle East, China is busy getting ready to take over the world. TIME is doing a a series of articles on them that started last week that are pretty open ended about whether this is going to a good thing for the world or not.

One of my TA’s, who is not your typical seminary PHD student, is conviced that this will not be a good thing for the world, and particularly not for America, and it is already not a good thing for Africa. He has been doing his PHD on fighting against poverty and corruption in the Muslim country of Chad. Over the past five years he has been going to different places in Africa and working with major oil coroporations (mostly Shell and Exxon) to help them see the value of actually helping the African people and developing the economy there. He has spent a lot of time talking to people on the ground and getting to know the situation while challenging these major corporations. He likes to tell stories about being dragged out into the desert in 125 degree temperatures at gun-point to be yelled at by muslim extremists. That is beside the point, but just letting you know what kind of person this is.

One of the discoveries he has made is that China means business in Africa. In 2000, they had control of only one oil site in Africa, but now they have oil sites pervading the area. If you didn’t know, the area above the Sahara dessert is the last remaining oil fronteir in the world. Besides Saudi Arabia, this will be THE major oil provider for the world in this century. While Shell and Exxon has had a presence in Africa over the last 50 years, China sees this as their opportunity to gain control of the region while we are fighting in the middle east. If you could see the map of oil sites that China has now you would be amazed at what they have done in the last 6 years.

How does this connect to Darfur? One of the main reasons we cannot stop the Darfur crisis is China. Everytime we make an initiative in the UN for Darfur, China opposes it. Why? For one, China is supplying the conflict because it helps them gain access to oil. While the border is in conflict between the sudan and chad, they want to build an oil line from Chad to the Red Sea so that they can take the oil directly to China. Right now, the only oil line goes out to the Atlantic so they can take the oil to Europe and the United States. China has a very different foreign policy than the United States that does not get involved in conflicts that don’t concern them and they support conflicts that benefit them. They don’t care how many Africans are slaughtered if they can get access to oil.

Why don’t we challenge China? We can’t for two main reasons- 1) we are a little distracted right now 2) China finances the majority of our bank notes now for our 3 Trillion dollar national debt and could decide not to do that anymore and destroy our economy.

While TIME is ambiguous about this for the US, our TA think this is bad for America. China not only wants control of the oil and be a world power but wants revenge against the west (don’t care if our economy goes down tube) for hundreds of years of resentment against west. What they don’t understand is that when they get control of the oil, oil prices will skyrocket to over $100 a barrel and it will be too expensive for almost anyone to use. He predicts that America wil experience a time of “exile” in the near future where we will go through a rough time over these oil changes.

So, we’ll see what happens in the world over the next 10 years, but it could get real interesting. I think this is really sad about Darfur, and I think America’s time is probably coming. Not to be a messenger of Doom, but we have not treated the world very well, and could come back around on us. Who knows what will happen unitl it does though.

I think it is crucial to think about how we wil respond to these kinds of issues as the church—will we defend the american way or bless those who curse us? What if american christians became known for blessing the world rather than exploiting the world for our profit?