Energy Security, Transnational Pipelines and China's Role in Asia Asie.Visions, No. 27, April 2010
In recent decades, China's transformation from a regional energy supplier to one of the world's largest net energy importers, in particular with regards to oil and gas, has led to an increasing sense of energy insecurity in Chinese policy circles. Guaranteeing adequate supplies of energy to fuel economic growth is a central element in Beijing's efforts to maintain legitimacy in the face of economic reform and transformation. To combat energy insecurity a number of initiatives are being undertaken to diversify energy inputs, suppliers, and the means of their transport.
Among these initiatives are a series of transnational pipeline projects that will transport oil and gas from Eastern Siberia, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia, effectively reducing China's overall reliance on international sea lanes and maritime choke-points, in particular the Strait of Malacca. An analysis of these projects can shed light on how China's energy security policies are playing out on a regional level, how they are complicated and aided by various competing and converging interests of regional actors, and how they are re-shaping traditional regional dependencies. Indeed, more complex interdependencies among suppliers, consumers and transit states in continental Asia are emerging as a consequence of China's growing role as an energy consumer.
In the end, these pipelines help to diversify China's oil and gas suppliers and transport routes, easing its reliance on Middle Eastern oil and maritime transit, but they are by no means an alternative to the latter. China will continue to rely heavily on international oil markets and maritime shipping routes to deliver Middle Eastern oil. Suring up international markets and finding means to cooperate on international maritime security issues are thus and will remain in China's best interest.