ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies the key actors in China's energy security policy and analyses a number of the most significant commitments that have been made towards major oil and gas projects. China's policy making has developed considerably from the Mao period when a rigidly centralised and hierarchic decision-making structure ensured that policies were imposed from above with almost no input from below. The proliferation of think-tanks in China have increasingly focused on energy security issues. This illustrates the growing complexity and sophistication of the policy-making process in China. Greater competition in the domestic petroleum market has also been encouraged through redistributing the assets of the two major oil companies, China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) and the China National Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec). The chapter presents four case studies: Xinjiang: The West-to-East Gas Pipeline, Central Asia: Gas from Turkmenistan and Oil from Kazakhstan, Russia: A Source of Oil and Gas, and The Middle East: A Crucial Source of Oil.
