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China’s New Push for Energy
Peter Mattis
In October 2003, Kazakh officials announced that the pipeline project linking the Chinese seaboard with Caspian Basin oil would go forward later this year. A March 3, 2004 statement from Kazakh Prime Minister Daniyal Akhmetov confirmed that construction would commence this year. The final round of meetings about investment in the project between the Chinese and Kazakh government are planned for May 2004 when the two governments will confirm the inter-state status of the project. With Kazakh interests firmly centered around resource extraction and balancing oil exports to the United States, Europe, and China, this raises questions about why China has waited seven years to push forward with this project originally agreed to in 1997.
