Rumsfeld provokes China, CNOOC eyes Unocal, Kissinger checks balance sheet

Rumsfeld provokes China, CNOOC eyes Unocal, Kissinger checks balance sheet

Rumsfeld provokes China, CNOOC eyes Unocal, Kissinger checks balance sheet

By Larry Chin

© Copyright 2005, From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com. All Rights Reserved. May be reprinted, distributed or posted on an Internet web site for non-profit purposes only.

More evidence of emerging Cold War between the US and China has exploded this week, as Donald Rumsfeld issued new threats towards China regarding its expanding military. The Chinese have responded with predictable fury (See "Rumsfeld and US irrationalism".) Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan entered the fray, alluding to East-West financial warfare involving the outflow of foreign investments and harm to the dollar, and repeating the Wall Street mantra that China must float its currency.

Meanwhile, the Sino-US race for oil ("China's Global Hunt for Oil") continues to ramp up, as China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) is positioning for bid for Unocal. (Latest update here.)

It may seem ironic that Chinese oil interests are poised to acquire the company that was (along with the myriad other machinations over Central Asian oil and gas pipelines) central to the buildup to 9/11, the ensuing "war on terrorism", and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. (Unocal's role is exhaustively detailed in Ahmed Rashid's Taliban, Forbidden Truth by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, and summarized in "Unocal and the Afghanistan pipeline".)

But maybe it is not so ironic.

Henry Kissinger, a former Unocal consultant deeply involved in the pre-9/11 pipeline consortium, sits on CNOOC's international board, which he joined in October 2001. Essentially, Kissinger has been on both sides of the oil deal for years, from CentGas/Central Asia to whatever comes of CNOOC's play for Unocal.

While the flames of world war burn, true inner circle elites like Kissinger play all sides, up and down, profiting all along the way.