Reader's Forum
Cold war age again!
By Khaled
Fri, 6 Jul 2007, 11:57:00

The war experts in the recent time are analyzing 'Is the world returning to the cold war age'? This kind of thought has developed following the Chinese government's offer to the oil rich African states of interest-free loans in exchange of oil supply at the international market rate and the US government's eyes on the vast oil rich Guinea coast. The USA has been reportedly importing more oil from Africa than from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia since 2005. According to one estimate, oil rich African countries can meet 35 percent of the total US demand for which Washington has been mobilizing naval units near the oil coast to protect the supply line.

When the USA has cast its eyes on Africa, China has been trying hard to expand its trade market around the world. China needs huge amount of oil to meet its internal consumption. She will try to import it from any source to save own economy; otherwise the rapid growing economy will collapse in a moment. For that, China needs a very powerful Navy with aircraft carriers. We know not whether China has been building aircraft carrier, but we know that the moment the Beijing government will go ahead with the plan, the US government will not take it leniently. And so, a cold war will be imminent.

This is what may happen in the coming days between China and USA over African oil. And just at that contemporary time, in the east, a cold war between China and India is looming over the Indian state of Arunachal Prodesh, which Beijing has again claimed of its own. Many war experts fear the Chinese government's ambitious plan of building highway over the Mount Everest as marching in the south in case of necessity. The Beijing government has also planned to divert the waters from the river of Brahmaputra to the mainland. If it is implemented, India will be in disastrous situation. But we think that nothing will take a serious turn before December 2008. In Europe, Russia under President Putin has been trying to regain its glory under Soviet Union. The relation with the west sharply deteriorated after the NATO's decision of deployment of missiles in two East European countries. It indicates that the USA does not yet trust Russia. President Putin gave counter threat but was unable to stop the missiles deployment. Now if Russia takes a hard stand, another cold war is in the offing.

Lalbagh, Dhaka


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