Official warns vs any efforts to ’starve’ China of energy

Efforts to blame the spike in oil prices on growth in Chinese consumption are “unreasonable and untenable,” a Chinese oil official said Tuesday, warning against any effort to limit the growing country’s access to energy.

“To spread the ‘China threat’ and try to curb China’s progress and starve its energy needs is not in the interest of world stability and development,” Zhang Guobao, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said in prepared remarks at a U.S.-China oil and gas conference in New Orleans. “Such attempts are doomed to fail.”