【英语社会】石油外交的残酷

“Follow the money” is the advice routinely offered to detectives in low-budget thrillers. For anyone attempting to understand the ebbs and flows of international politics, I offer a variant of that old line: “Follow the oil”.

Any suggestion that the search for energy is fundamental to the foreign policy of Britain and the US is often treated as faintly indecent. In Britain, the government is currently angrily brushing off suggestions that the decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, had anything to do with Libya's oil and gas. Jack Straw, the UK justice secretary, has released letters in which he spoke of considering prisoner transfers to Libya, in the context of “wider negotiations” and the “overwhelming interests” of the UK. He did not use the word “oil”; but, under mounting pressure, he has since admitted that trade and oil interests were “a very big part” of Britain's desire to bring Libya “back into the fold”.

It is true that oil is not the only interest Britain has at stake in Libya. But the search for more secure and diverse energy supplies is increasingly important to UK foreign policy. Britain's North Sea reserves are running down and the country is worrying about a looming energy crisis. Libya looks like a promising possible supplier of both oil and natural gas that is unusually open to foreign oil companies. BP and Royal Dutch Shell are the second and third biggest companies on the London stock exchange, and they have both signed exploration deals in Libya.

The relationship between Britain and Libya is just a minor example of a much broader phenomenon. Energy is at the heart of many of the biggest issues in international politics. That is because none of the world's major economic powers – the US, China, Japan or the European Union – is close to self-sufficient in oil and gas. Global demand for energy is rising steadily and the major powers are jostling to secure supplies. In his recent book, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet, Michael Klare, an American academic, argues that “a world of rising powers and shrinking resources is destined to produce intense competition among an expanding group of energy-consuming nations”. The book's cover carries a warm endorsement from Dennis Blair, the US director of national intelligence.

There are many examples of how this “intense competition” for energy is already shaping the foreign policies of the world's major powers. The tense relationship between Russia and the EU is defined by the fact that the EU is increasingly dependent on Russian energy supplies. When war briefly broke out between Russia and Georgia last year, western concern was heightened because Georgia offers the only plausible route for a gas pipeline from central Asia to the EU that bypasses Russia.

Later this month, western powers are likely to try to tighten sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear programme. But China and India are both wary of more sanctions because Iran is a key supplier of their energy needs. The Indians want to build a gas pipeline to bring Iranian gas to their domestic market. Iran is China's third biggest oil supplier.

The Chinese are eager to tie up energy deals wherever they can – hence the country's expanding interest in Africa. Angola is China's second biggest supplier after Saudi Arabia. Indeed, Angola is an increasingly popular destination for world leaders. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, visited last month. Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, was there in June. The Brazilians are also increasingly popular after their discovery of a large new offshore oil field. China recently agreed to lend $10bn (£6bn, €7bn) to Petrobras, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, in return for a guaranteed supply of oil.

Then, of course, there is the continuing puzzle over why the US invaded Iraq. There were doubtless many reasons why. But Alan Greenspan, the recently retired head of the US Federal Reserve, lamented in his memoirs that “it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil”.

Whether or not Mr Greenspan is right about Iraq, it is certainly true that America's leaders worry a great deal about the availability and price of oil. You cannot blame them. The two oil shocks of the 1970s drove the economic “stagflation” that plagued Europe and America during that decade. By contrast, the long booms during the Reagan and Clinton years were underpinned by low oil prices. The fall in the oil price in the 1980s did a lot to bankrupt the Soviet Union. The rise in the oil price over the past decade has led to a richer and more assertive Russia.

As Daniel Yergin, a leading historian of the oil industry, puts it: “It is oil that makes possible where we live, how we live, how we commute to work . . . Oil and gas are the essential components in the fertilizer on which world agriculture depends; oil makes it possible to transport food for the totally non-self-sufficient megacities of the world.”

Politicians know all this. They know that voters will punish them if fuel prices soar, or if there are electricity shortages. But they also know that if they openly put the search for oil at the heart of their foreign policies, they are liable to be denounced as cynical and immoral. When it comes to energy security, western politicians treat their voters like children – and behave like adults in private.

“跟踪钱的流向”——依照惯例，低成本惊悚片中的侦探们总会得到这样的建议。对于试图了解国际政治潮流动向的人，我的建议是那句老台词的改编版：“跟踪石油的走向”。

人们常常认为，关于寻找能源是英美两国对外政策根本原则的说法，没有太多不妥之处。有人提出，英国决定释放因制造洛克比(Lockerbie)爆炸案而被判刑的利比亚人阿卜杜拉巴塞特•阿里•默罕默德•迈格拉希(Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi)，与利比亚的油气资源有关。目前英国政府正在愤然消除人们的这种看法。英国司法大臣杰克•斯特劳(Jack Straw)公布了官方函件，称是在经过“广泛磋商”并涉及英国“巨大利益”的情况下，考虑将囚犯移交给利比亚的。他没有用“石油”一词，但面对日益加重的压力，他后来承认，贸易和石油利益在英国“重新接纳”利比亚的意愿中发挥了“非常重大的作用”。

诚然，石油并不是英国在利比亚唯一需要考虑的利益。但寻找更安全、更多元的能源供给，对于英国的对外政策越来越重要。英国北海的能源储量正逐渐耗尽，该国正在担忧日益迫近的能源危机。利比亚看上去是一个有前途的潜在油气供应国，对外国石油公司异常开放。英国石油(BP)和荷兰皇家壳牌(Royal Dutch Shell)在伦敦证券交易所分列市值第二和第三位，它们都在利比亚签署了勘探合同。

英国与利比亚的关系只不过是一个更普遍现象的缩影。能源是众多重大国际政治问题的核心。这是因为，没有一个世界主要经济体——美国、中国、日本或是欧盟——的油气资源接近于自给自足。全球对能源的需求正稳步上升，各主要经济体都在争相获取供应源。美国学者迈克尔•克莱尔(Michael Klare)在最近的著作《强国崛起，地球枯竭》(Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet)中指出，“在一个强国崛起、资源枯竭的世界里，不断扩大的能源消费国群体之间必将产生激烈的竞争”。这本书的封面上有美国国家情报总监丹尼斯•布莱尔(Dennis Blair)的诚挚推荐。

这种对于能源的“激烈竞争”已开始影响世界主要经济体对外政策的例子有很多。俄罗斯与欧盟之间的紧张局势主要是因为欧盟日益依赖俄罗斯的能源供给。去年俄罗斯和格鲁吉亚之间爆发短暂战事之时，西方社会忧虑加剧，因为格鲁吉亚提供了中亚天然气管道绕过俄罗斯抵达欧盟的唯一可行线路。

本月晚些时候，西方强国很可能会因为伊朗核项目而试图加大对伊朗的制裁力度。但中国和印度都对加强制裁保持谨慎，因为伊朗是两国能源需求的关键供应源。印度人希望修建一条天然气管道，将伊朗的天然气运往印度国内市场。伊朗也是中国的第三大石油供应国。

在任何有可能的地方，中国人都热切希望签署能源协议——因此中国对非洲的兴趣与日俱增。安哥拉是中国的第二大供应国，仅次于沙特阿拉伯。事实上，世界各国领导人越来越喜欢出访安哥拉。美国国务卿希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)上个月对安哥拉进行了访问。俄罗斯总统德米特里•梅德韦杰夫(Dmitry Medvedev)今年6月也在那儿。自从发现了大型海上新油田之后，巴西人也越来越受欢迎。中国最近同意向巴西国家石油公司(Petrobras)提供100亿美元贷款，以换取有保障的石油供应。

当然，还有美国为何入侵伊拉克的未解谜团。原因无疑有很多。但最近退休的美联储前主席艾伦•格林斯潘(Alan Greenspan)在其回忆录中叹道：“在政治上不便承认这个人人都知道的事实：伊拉克战争主要与石油有关。”

无论格林斯潘关于伊拉克的论断是否正确，可以确定无疑的是，美国领导人高度担心石油的可获得性和价格。你不能责怪他们。上世纪70年代的两场石油危机引发的经济“滞胀”，在那十年里一直困扰着欧洲和美国。相比之下，里根(Reagan)和克林顿(Clinton)任期内的长期繁荣受到了低油价的支撑。苏联的解体与上世纪80年代油价的下跌有很大关系。而过去十年油价的攀升，让俄罗斯变得更加富裕，也更加自信。

正如石油行业的知名历史学家丹尼尔•尤金(Daniel Yergin)所言：“是石油让我们的生活场所、生活方式、以及通勤方式成为可能……石油和天然气是化肥的关键原料，全世界的农业都依赖于此；石油让我们可以将食物运输到完全不能自给自足的世界各大城市。”

这些事情政治家们都知道。他们知道，如果燃料价格飙升、或如果出现电力短缺，他们会受到选民的惩罚。但他们同样知道，如果他们公然将寻找石油作为对外政策的核心，就有可能被谴责为利欲熏心、没有道德。在涉及到能源安全问题时，西方政治家像孩子一样对待他们的选民——但私底下表现得完全像个成人。

译者/何黎