Koizumi Visits Energy-Rich Russian Region, Seeking Oil

Search for a secure source of energy has been a major concern for industry-rich, resource-poor Japan. It is a concern that has been further heightened by growing insecurity in the world and rising tension in the Middle East -- its principal energy source. A new geopolitical concern about competition from a rising China has now been added to Japan’s foreign policy calculations. In a diplomatic chess game aimed at curtailing China's dominance of East Asia's economies, the Japanese Prime Minister visited Russia's Far East to ask for cooperation on a major oil project. "Mr. Koizumi, leader of the world's second-largest oil consumer, openly appealed for the construction of a 2,500-mile oil pipeline that would bypass China, bringing Siberian oil to the Sea of Japan." This article in The New York Times tells that "An alternate, shorter pipeline route, designed to bring Siberian oil to fuel industries in northern China, puts China and Japan in direct competition over Russian resources. Outside official meetings today, Japanese diplomats argued that Russia had geopolitical reasons to go with the Sea of Japan route: a need to counterbalance China. The Japanese hoped to play on Russians' insecurities about their Far East, an economically stagnant, underpopulated colony of about five million Europeans in Asia." - YaleGlobal