U.S. Opposition to Unocal Bid May Push China Toward Iran, Sudan

An outcry by U.S. lawmakers that forced Cnooc Ltd., the third-largest Chinese oil company, to drop its bid for Unocal Corp. may encourage China to do more deals in countries such as Iran or Sudan, energy policy analysts said.

“If the U.S. cuts off China from trading with and buying Western companies, it’s going to push them to politicize their energy even more,” said Michael Klare, author of “Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum.”

The Unocal defeat may force China into “alliances with rogue states,” said Klare, a professor at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. China has offered military assistance to Sudan and missile technology to Iran in return for access to oil, Klare said. China signed a $70 billion oil-and-gas deal with Iran last October.

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“The Chinese government has been engaged previously in making agreements with producer states in the Third World, and many of these were very bad actors,” he said. “If we see Chinese oil money flowing to bad or dubious actors around the world, we will have very few people to blame but ourselves.”

Bloomberg