consumer behind the U.S., China, like the U.S., is increasingly dependent on overseas
oil supplies. Driven by its increasing energy needs, China has been embarked on a
global hunt for oil from a diversity of sources (see Zweig and Bi 2005). In 2005, for
example, the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) launched a bid to
buy the California-based oil company Unocal. CNOOC chairman Fu Chengyu assured
the U.S. that ‘China’s goal is not to overturn the world order but instead to participate in
this world order, and to reinforce it and even to profit from it’ (Kirchgaessner 2006).
Yet, many neocons, including former CIA chief R. James Woolsey, saw the Chinese bid
as inherently sinister. Sharing this fear, the House of Representatives, by a vote of 398
to 15, passed a resolution calling the deal a threat to U.S. national security. This is
despite the fact that Unocal accounts for only 0.8 percent of U.S. oil production and 0.3
percent of consumption (Grier 2005). Stunned by the higher than unexpected hostility
from U.S. Congress, CNOOC was subsequently forced to abandon the bid, with one
Chinese involved in the process calling the U.S. reaction ‘a pretty rude awakening’
(Barboza 2005).
While the short-term controversy surrounding the aborted bid may have been over, its
long-term negative consequences for U.S.-China relations are likely to be felt in the
years to come. Among other things, what the U.S. was doing in relation to Unocal,
according to a New York Times (2005) editorial, ‘risks creating the hostility it fears’.
The American opposition to the Unocal deal, together with Vice President Dick
Cheney’s unhappiness with China’s efforts to buy into Canadian tar sands (Bremmer
2005), has effectively declared to the Chinese that North America is off limits. Yet in
doing so, one of the unintended consequences is to push China further to countries like
Iran, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Myanmar, and Venezuela, precisely those countries branded by
the neocons as ‘problem states’. In this way, the neocons’ perception of China as an
authoritarian, immoral regime is reinforced. For example, the 2006 U.S. National
Security Strategy has accused China of both ‘locking up’ energy supplies and propping
up troublesome regimes (White House 2006: 41-2), a perception which will no doubt
provide further ammunition for the neocons to get tougher on China.
In the case of Taiwan, a potential self-fulfilling prophecy is also at play. For instance,
Rumsfeld’s Singapore comments on the Chinese military were promptly echoed by
Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian, who reiterated the importance of beefing up the
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Convention