Southern Africa: China’s Thirst for Oil Exposes Gap in Naval Policy

Experts are calling on SA to lead the African Union in formulating a China policy to determine strategies that will protect the security of Chinese oil supplies from west Africa that are transported via the Cape.

Addressing a conference on maritime security in southern Africa in Stellenbosch recently, Prof Renfrew Christie, dean of research at the University of Western Cape, sa id China’s ever-growing demand for energy was a global threat – and particularly to the southern Africa region, which had to prepare itself for any eventuality – ranging from terrorism to the depletion of marine resources through overfishing by foreign companies.
Christie estimates that China’s energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product is eight times that of the UK, five times that of Japan and three times that of the US.

As a result, China is competing with the US and Europe for African oil and, already, Angola is believed to be supplying China with more oil than any other external source.

“Africa cannot afford not to have a China policy because, even now, unnecessary wars are being fought in Africa about oil for China,” sa id Christie.

AllAfrica