Does the road to Beijing run through Baghdad?

[More Than A Feeling]

We have been told that the reason for the massive increases in gasoline prices is due to increasing demand from China. What if that were the point all along?

It wasn't so long ago that the chinese had many people worried, roughly around the time of that spy plane crashing. China does have the massive population, and if their economy continues to grow, their power could, in time, outstrip our own.

However, they obviously need massive infusions of natural resources to achieve this. Thanks to the jitters we put the market in with our middle eastern activities and our continued insatiability for oil, it will now cost them more, and, in turn, slow their growth.

We would then have successfully delayed the day when we would have to deal with them on equal terms.

Has anyone else thought of this as well, or am I completely out there?