"Geopolitical Setting"

More than terror, this war is about oil

When the United States announced its unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty last month, it not only betrayed Russia's Vladimir Putin and President Jiang Zemin, who have shown goodwill in their support of the war against terrorism, but demonstrated clearly to the world that the arch-enemy of the US is not terrorism, but Russia, or China - or both.

Because if terrorism was the main concern, it would not have elevated anti-ballistic missiles, which common sense says are useless against terrorism, to such a high priority, and made them an issue at such a sensitive moment when the war in Afghanistan was continuing.

Even with the Afghan war, questions have been raised in some European countries about the real motive of the Bush administration. According to a new book, Bin Laden, the Forbidden Truth, by veteran French intelligence analysts Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, President George W. Bush ordered the FBI to back off its investigations of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network while he tried to obtain access to the huge oil and gas reserves in Central Asia.

Since Mr Bush took office last January, the US - in the presence of representatives of the UN, Russia and six other nations bordering Afghanistan - had been negotiating with the Taleban over construction of an oil pipeline through Afghanistan, all the while knowing the Taleban provided refuge to bin Laden.

The negotiations ended in August when the Taleban firmly refused to allow the US to go ahead with the project and the US threatened to "bury [the Taleban] under a carpet of bombs". This series of negotiations has been independently confirmed by Naif Naik, a former Pakistani minister for foreign affairs. The September 11 tragedy only gave Mr Bush a timely and credible pretext to venture into Afghanistan.

Now the Taleban has apparently been "buried" and the new provisional Government is headed by pro-American Hamid Karzai, whose only credential is that he is from the Pashtun tribe that makes up 40 per cent of the population in Afghanistan.

Under international supervision and aid, the situation in Afghanistan is expected to stabilise, and the US will soon be able to carry on with the pipeline project from Central Asia - which contains major oil and gas deposits - to the Indian Ocean. The oil reserve in this region is estimated to be approximately 200 billion barrels, about one-third the amount found in the Persian Gulf.

Although the US has to import 50 per cent of its oil, only seven per cent of its supplies come from the Gulf area. Looking ahead, in 20 to 30 years when world supplies dwindle, the Gulf and Central Asia will be vital for the survival and development of the major powers.

By launching Operation Enduring Freedom, the US wants to achieve two objectives: to counter terrorism and to consolidate US power in the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea area.

While anti-terrorism may get far more public attention, strategically, achieving the second objective may be equally, if not more, important.

Before the Afghan war, Central Asia was under strict Russian influence. But analysts in the US have long advocated that after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Central Asia should no longer fall within the Russian sphere of influence. Through the war, the US now has a firm foothold in Central Asia.

First of all, it has a say in Afghanistan's interim Government and future constitutional developments. More significantly, through the war, the US has acquired a new ally and a military base in Uzbekistan, on the southern flank of Russia.

The flow of oil from the Caspian Sea region has been controlled completely by the Russians, with all the pipelines running in the east-west direction. If things work out, in a few years' time the US will be able to break the Russian domination and have the Caspian oil flowing southwards into the Indian Ocean.

The Russians will then lose control of Central Asia, and a lot of oil revenue, which comprises about 50 per cent of the country's exchange earnings. This perhaps explains the lightning deployment of Russian troops to Kabul in late November last year. Russia cannot afford to be elbowed out of Central Asia, much more so now the US has given notice of its pull-out from the ABM treaty.

China imports 30 per cent of its oil and this percentage is rising fast. It plans to import a significant amount of Siberian oil from Russia. But Beijing's largest overseas oil joint venture is in Kazakhstan, just west of Uzbekistan, the US' newly acquired ally which is within striking distance of western China.

An oil pipeline from western Kazakhstan to the Pacific coast of China has been on the drawing board. Also under consideration is a gas pipeline from eastern Turkmenistan along the same route. If built, at 6,000km it would be the world's longest.

China regards the building of these expensive pipelines to be strategic to its future development. When completed, China would be an important hub for the distribution of oil and natural gas to South Korea and Japan, two of the world's major importers of oil and natural gas.

With the heavy participation of Japanese capital, this project is also expected to draw Japan closer to China, tipping the geo-political balance against the US in this part of the Pacific Rim.

In the short term, China is delighted to co-operate with the US in the war against terrorism in exchange for the US acknowledging China's similar efforts to eradicate Uygur separatists in Xinjiang. Such efforts were previously regarded by the US and Western European countries as a suppression of human rights.

In June, China, together with Russia, organised four Central Asian republics into the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation with the declared aim of fighting terrorism. The US incursion into Central Asia knocked the wind out of the organisation, which has been conspicuously quiet since the Afghan war began. Last month China suffered a series of bombing incidents; it would certainly be reluctant to leave it up to the US to decide what is terrorism and what is not.

The onset of the Afghan war has left regions from the Middle East and Central Asia to the Southern Asian sub-continent highly destabilised, with possible repercussions ranging as far as North Africa, Indonesia and the Philippines.

China's energy security has been seriously threatened and her geo-political position completely altered by developments in the last three months. Except in the north, China is now more or less completely encircled by US military bases. The US withdrawal from the ABM treaty made the mainland feel even more vulnerable. Beijing was forced to move closer to Russia, as both felt betrayed by the US and had the common interest of re-establishing themselves and regaining strategic power in Central Asia.

As the Chinese saying goes: "Ferocious dogs don't bark." One should not take the apparently meek response of Russia and China to the ABM issue lightly.

Whether the world will be a more peaceful place under Pax Americana we will have to wait and see.

Lau Nai-keung is a Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference delegate

Christine Loh's column will appear in tomorrow's paper

“South China Morning Post”, 7 January 2002