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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-luft2feb02,1,370578.story? coll=la-news-comment-opinions LA Times | 2 feb Gal Luft Sixty-seven years ago, oil-starved Japan embarked on an aggressive expansionary policy designed to secure its growing energy needs, which eventually led the nation into a world war. Today, another Asian power thirsts for oil: China. While the U.S. is absorbed in fighting the war on terror, the seeds of what could be the next world war are quietly germinating. With 1.3 billion people and an economy growing at a phenomenal 8% to 10% a year, China, already a net oil importer, is growing increasingly dependent on imported oil. Last year, its auto sales grew 70% and its oil imports were up 30% from the previous year, making it the world's No. 2 petroleum user after the U.S. By 2030, China is expected to have more cars than the U.S. and import as much oil as the U.S. does today. =================== Right wing Sino-phobic pessimism struggling to create a self-fulfilling prophecy: "The Energy Dept. says that world growth in petroleum has averaged 1.5% a year since 1995, despite China's growth." [latest issue of Business Week] Dr. Gal Luft is founder and co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS). He is a former lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Forces. In his military career, Luft commanded battalions in southern Lebanon, the Golan Heights, and YESH"A (Judea, Samaria and Gaza) and worked with the Palestinian Authority since its inauguration in 1994. He is an associate fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and is the author of The Palestinian Security Forces: Between Police and Army (Washington DC, 1998), as well as several articles on Israeli-Palestinian security issues published in Foreign Affairs, Commentary Magazine, Middle East Quarterly, and Middle East Review of International Affairs. Luft is a graduate of Bar Ilan University and holds a doctorate in Strategic Studies from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. http://www.acpr.org.il/people/gluft.html
