Beijing 'to increase reliance on Middle East oil'

China's dependence on Middle Eastern oil will increase in the coming years, while American dependence will decline, said speakers at the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission hearing in Washington last week.

The diverging trends will give the United States an upper hand over China, some speakers said, while others predicted China's growing thirst for Middle Eastern oil will lead the country to play a more active role in the volatile region and to become increasingly confrontational with the US.

"China is expanding its economic, diplomatic, political, and security presence in the Middle East," US Senator James Talent told the commission, which advises the US Congress on Sino-US relations. "That engagement is of particular importance to the US, given our country's interests and investments in that part of the world," Talent said.

In 2011, the mainland imported 2.9 million barrels a day of Middle Eastern oil, which accounted for 60 per cent of its oil imports. The US imported 2.5 million barrels a day, accounting for 26 per cent of its oil imports, said Erica Downs, fellow of the John Thornton China Centre, based in Washington and Beijing.

The International Energy Agency projects that by 2035, US oil imports from the Middle East will fall to 100,000 barrels a day, or 3 per cent of US oil imports, as a result of increasing oil production and decreasing demand. In contrast, China's oil imports from the Middle East are projected to grow to 6.7 million barrels a day, accounting for 54 per cent of Chinese oil imports over the same period.

Downs said: "Oil security concerns might compel Beijing to play a larger role in defusing the threat to the flow of oil from the Gulf. This might entail Beijing communicating to Iran that it would regard the disruption of oil exports as a threat to China's vital interests, similar to the public warning then-Premier Wen Jiabao issued in Qatar in 2012."