BEIJING, April 14 -- The Overseas Edition of People's Daily Tuesday carries an article calling for closer cooperation between China and the United States on energy issue. It says the US needs to revalue the tremendous market potential in China and abate unnecessary doubts toward China.

    The writer, Su Jingxiang, is an expert from China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. As Su pointed out at the beginning of the article, there is similar voice in the US.

    Senator Richard G. Lugar, Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, urged the US government to expand international cooperation on the energy issue to improve the international community's ability of coping with the oil crisis.

    In his speech at the Brookings Institution, Lugar said he intended to propose a bill on the energy diplomacy and security to the Congress, seeking for a formal agreement with China and India on energy cooperation. By including China and India into a world energy supply system, he explained, the stable global oil supply would be secured and possibility of conflicts reduced.

    The US is the world's largest oil consumer. The International Energy Agency has estimated that the US consumes a quarter of the world's oil production. The US has long been involved into the Middle East and trying to stretch to Latin America and Africa.

    However, some of its policies, which are labeled as "safeguarding the oil supply," do not work as expected, either in the Middle East, or in the Latin America. Putting the oil resources under the state control for the interest of the national economic sovereignty has become a trend in some oil producing countries and a resisting force against the US intervention and expansion.

    Some US politicians have realized that the US diplomatic policy concerning energy has been in a wrong direction. Following the old practice in the history, the policy of seizing resources sparkles conflicts and the spread of terrorism. In the mean time, the dependence on imports also weakened the competitiveness and injured the economic security of the US.

    Demand for oil is rising sharply in emerging economies of China and India. In the light of this, the US should steer away to more cooperation with other major oil consumers. The new type of strategic partnership will consolidate the negotiation ability of oil consumers in their talks with oil producers, thus helping boost the economic boom and national security of the US.

    China and the US are the two most active forces in the world economy while India and Russia show great potential of development. It is China's biggest ambition for the 21st century to build a harmonious society with sustainable, prosperous economy. But a permanent economic boom will not be possible if there is no balance between the economic growth and the environmental protection. In this sense, it is as important to China as it is to the US to forge strategic partnership on energy with the US, India and Russia to boost its future economic development and protect its national security.

    Lugar's advocacy for a stronger alliance with China and India on energy is welcomed and echoed by some US politicians. As a matter of fact, the US has begun to make some adjustments on its energy strategy. Last August, the energy law to improve the self-support of energy was enacted. The measures to treat used nuclear fuel were resumed not long ago. The adjustment last time was made 30 years ago.

    The article concluded that the two countries have great potential to join hands in oil exploitation, price moderating, energy efficiency technology, nuclear power and biomass energy.

    (Source: People's Daily Online)