The Chinese are stuck with one foot in each camp of a contentious battle for control of oil in East Africa. The most recent conflict between the nascent state of South Sudan and its controversial neighbor raises real concerns that China’s controlling stake in 40 percent of Sudan’s oil industry and 60 percent of its export will be seriously disrupted.

This current conflict, which arose earlier this month after claims that Sudan is stealing oil being piped to ports from South Sudan, unfolds just a little more than six months after China put in immediate diplomatic legwork with the new South Sudanese state. They did so with good reason given that estimates suggest the new country is responsible for around 75% of the region’s crude oil output. In the below timeline, you can see how the Chinese publicly responded to the new state in July:

China's response to South Sudan's Independence in July - Click for Live View

History Between China and Sudan

From where does this interest in the stability of Sudan arise? The storyline of relations between China and Sudan includes a backdrop of sanctions imposed on the Sudanese government by the US and UN that left a trade void for the country. China was willing to fill it especially given their increasing need for energy resources, and looking back to 2008 we find a series of investments and diplomatic actions between China and Sudan:

If you look back further than the time frame of the above discussion, you also find that China has been running one of its biggest oil projects in Sudan since 2004. The relationship is ever contentious: China took heat from world leaders when it hosted Sudan’s wanted leader Omar al-Bashir in June of 2011 ahead of the South Sudan’s formal independence, and there are claims that more than $55 million worth of Chinese weapons have been sold to Sudan.

Current Diplomatic Efforts

For some time after al-Bashir visited China, relations between the countries went fairly quiet. There were few, if any, publicly highlighted diplomatic relation events from July to the middle of November (note the time slider on the bottom of the network that shows the time frame being analyzed):

Diplomatic Relation Events for Sudan - July through Mid-November

However, relations suddenly saw a flurry of activity beginning with a pledge from Chinese defense minister Liang Guanglie on November 16 saying that his government would bolster military cooperation with Sudan, and since then, you can see below that China is the second most prominent state (after the United States) for diplomatic relation events with Sudan. The density of lines between network nodes indicates the number of events connecting those entities:

Diplomatic Relation Events for Sudan - Mid-November to Present

Why the sudden action even before the most recent allegations of Sudan stealing in-transit oil from South Sudan? Well, it’s possible that there was anticipation about the United States formally announcing its lifting of sanctions on oil trade with South Sudan after drawing up guidelines for companies to avoid infringing on the sanctions still imposed on Sudan. There also may have been hints that non-Chinese companies such as French oil giant Total would suggest alternative plans to pipe oil through Uganda for export via Kenya or Tanzania; ultimately, a bad solution for China.

The circumstances are fast changing and carry ramifications for the markets, the stability of the entire region, and international relations between China and the Western countries long at odds with Sudan. Monitor further updates by creating an alert for the most recent and near future events related to oil in East Africa.

Pop over to Drew Conway’s blog Zero Intelligence Agents and check out his latest post “Who are the most central members of the China’s leadership as we enter 2012?” Drew is a PhD student in political science at New York University. Drew studies terrorism and armed conflict; using tools from mathematics and computer science to gain a deeper understanding of these phenomena. He analyzed a massive amount of Recorded Future data gathered from open source, did some math magic and came up with a pretty compelling analysis.

A recent report from the IAEA on Iran’s alleged efforts to develop nuclear weapons heightened speculation of over Israel making a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities (action that may seem even more real given speculation about a recent explosion at an Iranian missile site over the weekend).

However, the recency effect can sometimes be blinding in a conflict as perpetual as this one. The most current threat always seems riskier than the last one. And anyone that even casually follows this issue knows that Israel has threatened Iran before, and even allegedly sabotaged its rivals’ nuclear development through assassinations and cyber warfare.

So, in evaluating the prospects of any near term action, it’s at least worth putting the most recent media coverage of a preemptive Israeli attack in perspective. The image below shows a timeline of references from the last three years related to Israel striking Iran over nuclear weapons concerns.

Threats from the last two weeks are clearly not the first of their kind, but one of several flare ups in the ongoing security conflict for both countries. And while emotionally charged rhetoric drives media coverage today, it often fails to provide the supplemental information that similar threats from Israel took place almost exactly a year prior.

Outside of evaluating the density of media coverage during recent years, there are other ways to contextualize the significance of this most recent threat of military conflict between Israel and Iran. For example, who are the figures out there talking about this issue?

Using the same timeframe, 2009-2011, we can identify individuals discussing the combination of Iran, Israel and nuclear weapons capabilities.

Using the time slider under the network view, we can go back to May 2009 to find Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, saying that his country would not allow a nuclear Iran while months later Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said “there was no guarentee Israel would not launch a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities…” Separately, clear throughout are the retaliatory consequences that would accompany Israeli military action. In addition to the state military response from Iran, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal made it clear that any attack would generate support for Iran from militant groups in Gaza.

It’s also clear from the network above that the Turkish government is active in the political maneuvering with Recep Erdogen saying that any preemptive attack would be “disastrous for the entire region”. Separately, the Russian government figures prominently as do connections to the country through alleged support from scientist Vyacheslav Danilenko.

Now we have a clear indication that the issue of Israel preemptively acting against Iran is one that’s been prominent in geopolitical discussion for years, let’s shift back to evolution of the recent news. When did this issue really heat up? Well, we can see from an analysis of sources that there was the typical, scattered discussion about Israeli concerns over a nuclear Iran, at least up until October 30.

However, on October 31, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a parliamentary speech warning that Iran continued to develop nuclear weapons, and suggested that “a military option should not be ruled out.” This spurred mainstream news (shown in pink) coverage on the potential for a preemptive strike even ahead of an IAEA report that came out days later suggesting Iran’s program may in fact be one designed for weaponization.

Now about two weeks past the hottest media coverage of the issue, we look out for any predictions about the days ahead. What we find is London’s Daily Mail reporting, by way of an unidentified source, that Israel would take action against Iran by the end of the year.

The Daily Mail report, so far, does no seem corroborated by other notable sources, and this issues is one of those that is notoriously difficult to dissect. How do we know what is political posturing versus concrete evidence of action? Without inside sources, we may not know, but the open source is useful in garnering perspective around inflammatory issues.

Without getting into conspiracy theory territory, what further angles would be interesting to view here? Maybe we want to examine US media sentiment about Iran leading up to Netanyahu’s speech at the end of October, or try to identify abnormalities (whether it’s unique individuals or sources) calling for a preemptive strike. We’ll return to the issue in a few weeks to see how the scenario changes.

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Whatever your every day research interest, the open web provides an invaluable resource for better understanding geopolitical activity. We’d love for you to give these approaches and experiment with your own through free trial access to Recorded Future.

Now anyone can sign up for a free trial of Recorded Future Premium. You’ll get full use of premium research tools that allow you to analyze past trends and better understand the potential future of almost anything! No credit card and no commitment required. We’d love to hear your feedback.

Be sure to test out our newest tool, the Network view. Click the image below for an interactive view of  Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s network.

We recently Tweeted a shared link showing coverage and gaining online momentum for the Occupy Wall Street movement. When we look more carefully at influencers in this discussion using our Influencer Map, we find that Iran Press TV  is the second largest influencer after the US Media!

Iran Is Top Contributor of Information

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Press TV reporting has a distinct slant. Check out this except from one of the Press TV hits:

An American scholar says peaceful anti-corporatism protests known as “Occupy Wall Street” in New York are ‘nonexistent’ in mainstream media in the US, Press TV reports. “Apparently it is too threatening to corporate interests to acknowledge it,” James H. Fetzer, founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, told Press TV on Thursday.

First of all, we’ve been tracking Occupy Wall St in the mainstream media for quite some time. This screen shot shows hits (shaded) in the mainstream media over time:

Mainstream Media Coverage

And for those who are unaware Scholars for 9/11 Truth is an organization who list: Scholars for 9/11 Truth (S9/11T) is a non-partisan association of faculty, students, and scholars, in fields as diverse as history, science, military affairs, psychology, and philosophy, dedicated to exposing falsehoods and to revealing truths behind 9/11.

Regardless, Iran’s Press TV seems disproportionally interested in covering these events. In nearly every other US geopolitical top contributors are typically UK and Canada after the US (check out this example of Tea Party coverage and influencers over the same period). Iran’s increasing online coverage and influence should certainly be noted.

When: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 11AM Eastern
Where: WebEx Conference (see details and register)

Need to better understand what your competitors are doing during the next 90 days or what technologies are expected to affect the market during the next five years? Join us next week to learn how Recorded Future can help you find the answers.

Next Tuesday (10/11) at 11am Eastern, we’ll host a live presentation exploring how temporal analytics applied to the real-time web supports more efficient and comprehensive competitive intelligence. The focus of this event will be on research in the defense and government services industry.

During the webinar, we’ll explore the following:

• how to use temporally organized web content for forward looking competitor research in the government sector.
• identifying the most influential media sources and stakeholders on different issues.
• using visualization tools to map out M&A and technology trends.

As for the presentation, we’ll keep it to 30 minutes and provide a general introduction to Recorded Future before diving into use case demos and concluding with a Q&A session. Register today or contact us if you have questions!