Oil Wagon

Recently the media's focus on U.S.--China relation has shifted from trade and human rights to a single thing: oil. This is understandable since the U.S. is fighting a war, admitted or not, over the control of a major oil producing nation. Add to this high gasoline prices, no wonder there is only one thing in their minds. Alarmists are of course running around like headless chickens screaming doom everywhere. Even the optimist are looking concerned in front of the camera. There is an unprecedented sense of there is not enough of oil to go around. This is what environmentalists and conservationists have been saying for decades and either ignored or "rebuttaled" by the 'mainstream.' It is a good thing therefore that people are starting to take the issue seriously. The reaction, however, is blind and negative. Regardless of what the Chinese are doing, sooner or later there will not be any oil anymore. What the Chinese are trying to do is to use diplomacy to accomplish what the U.S. accomplished with carrier battle groups. If the Chinese government cannot secure enough supply of oil for China, they will fall out of power regardless of what political system under which they operate. The backward lookers of Europe and North America are feeling threatened and start to contemplate extreme scenarios of conflict over oil. Mad Max slowly becomes the metaphor for them. This is however a good chance to recognize that oil is quickly becoming the energy source of the past, like it or not, and move wholeheartedly to the future, the next major source(s) of energy. For fifty years, the U.S. has hitched its wagon to oil. Now the question is will the great U.S. empire goes down with oil? There is a minor revolt of oil producing countries that is getting more and more major everyday. It is not China that the U.S. has to worry about on this matter; it is their inability to coup with change that is the problem.