President Chavez of Venezuela has promised to provide China with one million barrels of oil per day by 2012. China is Venezuela’s second largest customer, behind the US, and currently receives 155,000 barrels a day from the country. Plans were also announced to build a new refinery in Venezuela with Chinese technology.

For Mr Chavez, the Chinese connection offers an opportunity to reduce Venezuela’s reliance on the US market. He has courted controversy with a high profile campaign against Washington’s foreign policy and spices his speeches with anti-US rhetoric.

The US still relies on Venezuela for 12% of its oil imports, but the relationship is frayed.

A huge deal to buy arms from Russia, financed by oil revenues, is the latest of Mr Chavez’s attempts to underline his independence from his powerful neighbour in the north.

China is the second largest consumer of energy in the world, and is engaged in a massive diplomatic quest for allies which can meet its demands. With their huge population becoming increasingly modernized, Chinas energy consumption is expected to surpass that of the US. This competition over finite resources will put the two countries in direct confrontation with each other over the last drops of oil. It seems as though we may be able to answer the Machiavellian question from first hand experience of whether it is better to be feared or loved. Given the fact that China uses diplomacy to secure its resources while the US uses brute force, I’m fairly confident in saying that America will not win that war. The worldwide fear the US has commanded over the past century has alas turned to worldwide hatred. I better start learning Chinese.
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