ì1,500-Mile Oil Pipeline Fading Fast For China: Japan Offers Russia An Alternative Route,î by Peter S. Goodman, Washington Post, 5 April, p. A1.

The great auction between Japan and China to see who would get the first pipeline built out of Siberia seems to be going to the Japanese, who frankly are willing to pay more money to sweeten the deal.

As the article states, the proposed China-Russia pipeline deal of last May ìwas key to Chinaís increasingly desperate need for energy to fuel its torrid industrial expansion. It underscored how the Communist Party government, once isolated and obsessed with self-sufficiency, is now increasingly engaged with the outside world, refashioning relations with previously bitter enemies in pursuit of its economic needs.î

So Japan wins this round, which only forces China to be more aggressive in its efforts elsewhere, like Central Asia or even sub-Saharan Africa.

Now many in the Pentagon will read this sort of stuff and see future conflict brewing between a China and the West over access to raw materials, when what they should really see is a China deeply incentivized to deal. What I see in Beijing is a strategic partner in the making: someone greatly interested in making sure energy flows from the Gap to the Coreójust as we are.

So where are those security deals in the making? Beats me. Instead we plan a missile defense shield in Asia to protect Taiwan from China, which assumes, I guess, that China will continue to buy our sovereign debt to pay for our ballooning federal deficit.

Perhaps if I were a true ìrealist,î I wouldnít persist in bringing up all these pesky economic connections. Then I could see power for what it really isópure megalomania inside the Beltway.