Quote Originally Posted by Adam Strange View Post
I'm not sure buying up Canada's oil resources is such a great idea at this point. If the oil companies thought that the reserves were worth a lot, they'd have never sold them off. The world has an oil glut right now. In the latest US govt lease sales, almost no one bid. Evidently, the carbon energy companies have realized they have enough reserves for the foreseeable future. In fact, their proven reserves are sufficient to turn this planet into Venus and end all life more complex than anaerobic bacteria if they are burned. So, I would say that the Chinese are mercantilists rather than capitalists, especially because they are buying up land for crops in foreign countries. This is not a durable strategy, if push comes to shove.
The last time something like this happened was in the mid 1980's, when the Japanese were popularly thought to be ready to take over the world economy as the US economy exported manufacturing jobs and started building IT jobs. The Japanese paid extremely high prices for property on Times Square, and sold it off at a terrific loss a few years later. I believe China's long-term situation is not much different.
Never thought of it like that before, as China being mercantilist.

About oil being down that is very true, all over the news here saying oil is below $50 a barrel, which is really hurting the oil economy here. Unfortunately Canada's federal government has put all its eggs in the oil resource basket for the past 8 years, and is now experiencing a huge down turn with tens of thousands of lay offs in the oil fields.

As it stands, China already owns much of the oil extracting former Canadian companies (see Nexen). I think actually that Chinese government and interests are extremely forward thinking by buying the oil and means of extracting it from wherever they can because as they see it, the Empire needs to last for a VERY long time into the future. I'm sure that for them, they neither care about where, or how they get these power resources, they only care about getting them, period. I think that for them it is less about economic superiority like it has been for the Japanese (although this would be a welcomed aspect of reserves control) and more to do with security of the people and bureaucracy of the Chinese nation itself longterm. Being able to control the flow of natural resources, no matter where it is located on the planet, is the means in which a country can use to bargain and survive with well into the future.

Canada contains the third largest reserves of oil on the planet, below Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. It also happens to be in the most dirtiest form of sludgy, gravelly sand that is extremely power intensive to extract and process. Sadly, the Canadian government sold its wealth for short term gain.