In the new century started by the "9. 1 1" incident, only three countries in the world can truly be called great powers in terms of strength and external influence, that is, the United States, China and Russia. In the post-fossil energy era, petroleum politics will be the central topic of global politics, and big countries are destined to be the protagonists in the contemporary petroleum political pattern. The oil politics of big countries has two fundamental characteristics: First, big countries not only have strong reaction ability, but also have great endurance. Because China, the United States and Russia have obvious differences in resource utilization and composition, great differences in political ideas and different economic development status, the three countries' oil political positions and coping styles are almost completely different. Second, oil is only a part of the economic and political problems of big countries. Unlike the oil countries of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, oil is almost all. For big countries, there are more economic and political interests that must be comprehensively balanced, so the oil politics of big countries is the result of comprehensive balance of many factors.

Since the 20th century, three major events have taken place: "9. 1 1", the re-emergence of Russia and the peaceful rise of China. These three events fully reflect the manifestations and internal motives of the oil politics of the three major countries. Let's talk about America first. The "9. 1 1" incident is a great event in the United States and the world, and it is a huge shock to the United States and the world. In this shock, many people are puzzled that the United States and Saudi Arabia are very friendly, but 15 of the 19 plane collision attackers are Saudis. What signal is this?

From the perspective of oil, we can think of three things: first, in the Middle East war of 1973, Arab countries used the oil embargo for the first time, which was extremely powerful. Since then, the western countries have ended the good times of rapid growth since World War II and fallen into an unprecedented economic crisis. In this regard, the famous American diplomat Kissinger had a classic showdown with the Saudi king. If the embargo is imposed indefinitely, the United States will send troops to completely blow up the oil fields. This is undoubtedly the end of the suicide of both sides, and it is also the final bottom line of a game of interests between the two sides, indicating that both sides have the means to restrain each other. Second, the United States is highly dependent on oil. Automobile is the symbol of the United States, which is a highly civilized and modern country, and also a country that uses and relies on oil to the extreme. Third, Saudi Arabia is really a strange country, with only about 3% arable land in a large area, but there is almost endless oil in a barren desert. Oil is undoubtedly the root and foundation of this country.

It was originally expected that the United States would send troops to Afghanistan after "9. 1 1", but sending troops to Iraq was really unexpected. Opening the world's second largest oil valve and preventing it from falling into the hands of "dictatorship" enemies may be the fundamental political goal of the US Iraq war. However, through the Iraq war, we can find that the United States can quickly defeat small and medium-sized countries in any conventional war, but it is difficult to win in the informal war of "human flesh" bombs. This failure shows that the end of the war cannot be easily opened, and even small countries can compete with superpowers; Iraq's oil valves will not be exactly what the United States wants in the future.

Under the current petroleum political situation, the United States has completely abandoned the past practice-the form of proxy war, and went into battle in person and used force at any time. This is a dangerous signal, which indicates that international petroleum politics has entered a new stage of development. There are profound internal reasons for the United States to do so. The unprecedented economic crisis facing the United States is the manifestation of the problem. The root of the current economic crisis in the United States is the product of the contradiction between its inflated prosperity and its inability to effectively supply its own resources. The prosperity of a country ultimately needs to be based on how many resources it can provide, otherwise the tall buildings built on the beach will eventually collapse.

Secondly, talk about Russia. Russia's re-emergence is another great event in the 2 1 century, and Russia's tough response to the Georgia incident was unimaginable before. With high energy prices, Russia can re-emerge with energy as a weapon. At present, maintaining the realization of energy value, especially keeping the oil price at a high level, should be the core issue of Russian oil politics. Whether Russia's re-emergence can finally be realized still needs this kind of "high oil price and high energy price" to last for at least 5~ 10 years before the structure and system of a big country can be basically restored. To this end, Russia has paid a heavy price: it has the fifth largest oil resource in the world, but it has exported almost the first oil in the world. Obviously, this situation is unsustainable, and it is at the expense of domestic economic development. In recent years, Russia has used very little oil in the process of economic development, far less than developed countries, and replaced it with a lot of natural gas.

Therefore, contrary to the United States' use of force to curb oil prices, defending oil prices by force should be an important principle of Russian oil politics. In the Georgia incident, Russia also emphasized its firm support for Iran and Venezuela, two tough oil countries, and strongly stated that sanctions against Iran were unacceptable. The emergence of Russia in the grim situation will be an important feature of the future big country game in the future oil political structure, which will be an important factor to maintain high oil prices in the future. Of course, Russia has some flexibility in maintaining high oil prices, and it must consider the reactions of Europe and quite a few countries. Therefore, with the re-emergence of Russia as a superpower, the petroleum economy and petroleum politics will have to present a severe and complicated situation.

Finally, talk about the role of China. China's peaceful rise is another great event in 2 1 century, and it will also be the most far-reaching event in 2 1 century-returning to the world center after 200 years. The peaceful rise of China is closely related to China's oil politics and energy politics. The first eight years of the 265,438+0 century are rare years of bloody disasters since World War II. In this context, China can rise rapidly and play a central role in promoting global economic development. The important reason is that China quickly adjusted China's energy strategy and policy at the beginning of the Iraqi war, that is, relying mainly on its own energy and replacing oil with coal.

At the end of last century, China determined the energy development strategy of 2 1 century, the main point of which is to take the road of efficient energy utilization in developed countries-energy utilization mainly based on oil and gas. The adjustment of energy strategy is very effective. China took off in adversity, and its economy almost doubled in the past six years. In terms of purchasing power parity, China's GDP growth in 2006 was close to 1.5 times that of Japan, and China's GDP is nearly three times that of Japan at present. In the past six years, China has exported energy equivalent to Saudi Arabia and Russia, the two largest energy exporters in the world, in the form of cheap products, effectively preventing the worst energy crisis and economic crisis in history. Without China, the financial crisis on Wall Street today would have happened as early as four or even five years ago.

Besides, China is one of the few countries that can buy oil at any price, and China has the ability to do so for a long time. This is a solid foundation for China's peaceful energy politics, peaceful diplomacy and peaceful international exchanges.