Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
8
Governing and Contesting China's Oil
Operations in the Global South
Patricia Widener
Research indicates that each step of the oil supply chain has the potential
to threaten the health of communities and ecosystems,
1
while oil extrac-
tion and the related elements of the supply chain often fail to promote
local employment, technology transfers, and local economic linkages
(Arakan Oil Watch 2008; Caldwell 1986; Karl 1997; Renner 2002).
Unless coupled with a state and industry commitment to the environment
and to participatory spaces for affected communities, oil extraction has
proven to be detrimental to neighboring communities and ecosystems.
To be sure, oil-related injustices are twofold. On the one hand, they have
been perpetuated nationally by unresponsive state leaders who have
failed to provide the most basic necessities for the most oil-impacted
communities. On the other hand, they have also been perpetuated by
Northern corporations, policies, and consumption patterns, which seek
fossil fuels worldwide. Combined, these national and global inequities
have generated nearly three decades worth of local, national, and trans-
national oil disputes.
It is within this milieu of confl ict and inequity that Chinese oil operators
have expanded overseas. Chinese fi rms began entering Africa's oil fi elds
in the early 1990s and courting and being courted by South American
leaders a decade later.
2
China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which
have expanded into new terrain or replaced Northern fi rms and fi nanciers
when they have abandoned politically risky ventures or low-yield fi elds,
3
may even aggravate human rights abuses, labor injustices, and ecological
destruction if they weather political instability, short-term profi t demands,
community protest, and social unrest better than Northern fi rms.
In defense of China's overseas operations, there is no “enforceable
code” with regard to human rights for China's SOEs to follow (Meintjes
2000, 94), while global standards on labor issues, affected communities,
and the environment remain inadequate and unjust in places where oil
