Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai
Reuters reports:
Indian and Chinese oil firms will sign agreements aimed at bidding jointly for foreign oil and gas projects and reducing cut-throat competition, a top Indian official told Reuters on Tuesday.
The energy-hungry Asian giants, which have stretched global supplies and contributed to the record rise in oil prices, are competing for stakes in foreign oil and gas projects to secure supplies.
The article quoted an Indian official quoting a Chinese official as saying that “joint bids from India and China would be so formidable that there are no targets which will not be accessable.” Well, yes, in theory. But look what happened to CNOOC. Politics subverts economics, and it will be fascinating to see how this story plays itself out.
wait until Uncle SAM finds this out and arm twists the Giants
Comment by @mit — August 17, 2005 @ 4:40 pm
A most ill-advised idea, if ever there was one! India and China still have political issues to resolve, and are competitors or potential competitors in many strategic sectors. China is still an economic and political rival (if not threat), and we should be ultra-cautious about these things. As for the CNOOC deal, there are two sides to it - (a) India should be happy that China was not able to secure the deal, as a competitor (b) India (and the developing world) would have obviously taken note of how the goalposts are moved when there is real competition to the existing economic world order, and plan accordingly. I was happy to note in the latter context that analysts thought India’s lobbying capabilities (from an economy point of view, at least) in Washington were better than China’s and that China has catching up to in that area!
Comment by Nanda Kishore — August 21, 2005 @ 1:14 am