Energy-hungry China breaks ground in Middle East

The Chinese demining mission in Lebanon is a small sign of Beijing’s rapidly expanding engagement in the Middle East, where its voracious quest for secure energy supplies in the 21st century has sharpened its interest in regional stability.

China is striving to build economic and political ties in a region which the International Energy Agency expects to supply 70 percent of its oil imports by 2015, but in doing so it risks antagonizing its key trading partner, the United States.

For China woos U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia with the same fervor it uses to court Iran, Syria and Sudan — all at odds with the West and seen by Washington as “sponsors of terrorism”.
Reuters