Harry Verhoeven talks on the Today programme about the Chinese commodity rush in Africa

Harry Verhoeven appeared on BBC Radio 4s Today programme on 27 June, discussing China embarking on what has been described as one of the greatest commodity rushes in history with economist Dambisa Moyo.

When asked if the gradually-increasing Chinese control over the production of commodities would inevitably lead to wars over resources, Harry disagreed.

"This is not to say that there are not real pressures," he said, "but the idea of resource wars is a fairly simplistic idea; the idea that when you run out of a resource, say water or land, people just start fighting over it is not borne out empirically." He went on to say that there is a strong and deep body of academic literature which suggests that "... wars over resources don't really exist: they're really wars over politics," and "what we see in most cases is that when a resource starts to run out, people start to co-operate."

The full programme can be heard here. (c. 2hrs 48mins in - programme expires 4/7/12)

Harry Verhoeven is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Politics and International Relations.