by John Gray
A race for the world's resources is underway that resembles the Great Game
that was played in the decades leading up to the First World War. Now, as
then, the most coveted prize is oil and the risk is that as the contest
heats up it will not always be peaceful. But this is no simple rerun of the
late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, there are powerful new players
and it is not only oil that is at stake.
It was Rudyard Kipling who brought the idea of the Great Game into the
public mind in Kim, his cloak-and-dagger novel of espionage and imperial
geopolitics in the time of the Raj. Then, the main players were Britain and
Russia and the object of the game was control of central Asia's oil. Now,
Britain hardly matters and India and China, which were subjugated countries
during the last round of the game, have emerged as key players. The struggle
is no longer focused mainly on central Asian oil. It stretches from the
Persian Gulf to Africa, Latin America, even the polar caps, and it is also a
struggle for water and depleting supplies of vital minerals. Above all,
global warming is increasing the scarcity of natural resources. The Great
Game that is afoot today is more intractable and more dangerous than the
last.
The biggest new player in the game is China and it is there that the
emerging pattern is clearest. China's rulers have staked everything on
economic growth. Without improving living standards, there would be
large-scale unrest, which could pose a threat to their power. Moreover,
China is in the middle of the largest and fastest move from the countryside
to the city in history, a process that cannot be stopped.
There is no alternative to continuing growth, but it comes with deadly
side-effects. Overused in industry and agriculture, and under threat from
the retreat of the Himalayan glaciers, water is becoming a non-renewable
resource. Two-thirds of China's cities face shortages, while deserts are
eating up arable land. . . .
FULL TEXT
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Lutz Kleveman, "The New Great Game,"
Guardian, October 29, 2003
Daniel Howden and Philip Thornton, "The Pipeline That Will Change the
World," Independent, May 25, 2005
