Fragments from the Far East

The Islamic fundamentalist government in Sudan now supplies China with 7 percent of its oil supplies and China has invested $3 billion in oil drilling infrastructure there. In September 2004, China threatened to veto a move by the United Nations to impose sanctions on Sudan for the genocide that it is perpetrating in its Darfur province. China followed by opposing any move to refer Iran's obvious attempts to develop nuclear-weapons-grade fuel to the United Nations Security Council. Iran supplies 13 percent of China's oil supplies. Meanwhile, as the Daily Telegraph reported (November 19, 2004), China has begun drilling for gas in the East China Sea, just west of the line that Japan regards as its border: “Japan protested, to no avail, that the project should be a joint one. The two are also set to clash over Russia's oil wealth. China is furious that Japan has outbid it in their battle to determine the route of the pipeline that Russia intends to build to the Far East.” At the same time it was reported that a Chinese nuclear submarine had accidentally strayed into Japanese territorial waters ...»