China on the Global Oil Roller coaster

Recently on the BBC homepage there was an article published commenting that the centralized price controls of Communist China were found to be unmanageable when it came to energy prices. The unfortunate truth that China's oil prices have shot up 10% recently have come as another blow to a people whose ideas of the Iron Rice bowl were dashed in the 80's due to Deng Xiaoping's market reforms. Since the PRC is in full competition with any other country in the world for resources shouldn't they be treated like any other country that is developed enough to compete for such resources. In much the same way as any opinion columnist might state his case, I find that the excuse for which China refuses to adhere to any environmental policies because it is still a developing nation, is as ridiculous as the USA's excuse, that it will damage our economy (which has some how become dependent on a housing market/dependent on cheap labor and credit cards, nevermind the 1.4 trillion dollar deficit with the PRC). Both are laudable choices of rhetoric to appease a large section of those with a great deal of money. Interestingly, the United States will have to face up to any major environmental problems in the future as any other world nation because we are quickly being surpassed by China as the leader of the global economy. As such, we, as number 2, will not have such a high perch to caw from. Yes, the Middle Kingdom is once again receiving that which it held sway over for centuries, if not millennium. The world economy within the next twenty to forty years will be centered on Beijing or possibly Shanghai, they will be the new New York of the World and they will be outside the laws of many nations as it refers to environmental impact. While the US might be a bad example as the single largest polluting group in the world today, just imagine the new (re-new?) world leader China, with greater than 1.5 billion people (or more)... that is one massive carbon footprint.