New Century Chinese Oil Diplomacy In Africa

Since China officially became a net importing country in 1993,the importing dependence on oil has been soaring along with its domestic economic boom. Oil dependence importing area has become a diplomatic key point for China. In recent years, Africa has been listed the significant region for China's oil diplomacy. China takes shape in Africa's petroleum demain gradually. The main developing rapid time is Hu Jintao and the leaderships have frequently visited Africa since 2002. Besides, China uses the conversation system platform, which was established in "Forum on China-Africa Cooperation" in 2000, making the conversation and cooperation with African countries are even closer.The thesis discuss China's oil diplomacy pattern toward Africa since 2002. It has found that China uses the investments of Chinese oil enterprises in Africa as base. The multiplex policies of oil diplomacy toward African countries are including: armed force sells, loans, infrastructure investments, and supports the African countries to hold the domestic politics right to independence etc. The potential challenges for China are the political and social problems growing in Africa because of the oil resource such as corruption, rotten, civil strife etc. These are the biggest risks for Chinese oil enterprise investing African oil field as well. China's unconditional supporting policy to Africa has made political corruption and poverty getting worse. It causes western countries to accuse China for being an irresponsible great country and "neo-colonialism". China's oil diplomacy toward Africa affects the oil benefit of various countries in Africa. The interaction between China and other competitive counties in Africa oil would be observed continually in the future.