ABSTRACT
Oil has long been viewed as a strategic resource for nations. China is now the world’s second largest oil consuming nation. Its global efforts to secure oil imports have profound implications for international relations in the AsiaPacific. China’s rising oil demand and its external quest for oil have thus generated much attention. It is believed that as China’s overseas oil quest intensifies, the potential for it to clash with other Asian oil consumers and disrupt the US foreign policy and the world order will also increase. The chapter attempts to provide an overview of China’s external initiatives
for satisfying domestic oil demands, discuss briefly the sources for domestic demands, and then analyze the implications of China’s oil diplomacy on regional and global political stability. This chapter suggests that China, rather than striving for an effective reduction of its domestic demands for oil, actively is searching for oil around the world and even making deals with countries regarded as problematic by the West. Domestic oil demands have been closely linked with China’s mode of development that favors the expansion of the automobile industry and markets. This chapter examines in detail measures that China has taken in order to
satisfy its growing domestic demand for oil and their implications. It argues that China’s oil diplomacy strengthens its ties with oil-producing nations and complicates those with oil importing nations. Nevertheless, contrary to many pessimistic predictions, China has largely accommodated the US and has forged joint efforts in energy exploration with Asian neighbors. Nevertheless, China’s oil diplomacy has indeed entangled itself in political controversies.
