Geopolitics, Oil And Water

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The most troubling element of the latter-day industrial revolutions in India and China may lie in their soaring energy demands. The rise in the consumption of natural resources is significant because of the sheer number of people involved: There are a combined 600 million Americans and Europeans, but more than a billion Chinese and a billion Indians. India’s oil consumption has doubled since 1992, and China’s has doubled since 1994. Today, India and China have low per-capita petroleum consumption, but if the two nations used as much oil as the U.S., there wouldn’t be enough oil for the world.
The race for resources like oil can put countries at loggerheads, and the foreign policies of both India and China are increasingly dictated by their energy needs. They have made up with historical enemies and, more alarmingly, have cozied up to nations led by despots or in otherwise unsavory states of affairs. Before our eyes, post-Cold War political alliances are shifting.

For now, as the Indian and Chinese economies grow and reclaim a larger slice of the global economic pie, both are growing more connected to the rest of the world, not more estranged from it. Disagreements between nations are no longer disputes about economic models–communism vs. capitalism. Capitalism decisively won the Cold War debate, and that has helped hundreds of millions of Indians and Chinese prosper by ushering in the globalization era that has created so many jobs and bettered so many lives in developing countries.

So far, the increased trade has drawn nations closer together–even to the point of answering each other’s e-mails and phone calls. The whole world has a stake in keeping vibrant worldwide trade going, rather than giving in to the temptation to try to protect jobs at home instead of letting them flow freely around the world.

The challenge for all nations is to negotiate the new terrain of a globe that again contains a powerful India and China. The geopolitical shifts are enormous, but the economic developments may force even bigger adjustments–for India and China, as well as for the West.

Forbes