ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 summarizes the findings and reinforces the claim that the commonly used concept of energy security lacks explanatory power. The notions of security and insecurity in energy politics are contextual. Examining oil as a discourse and, specifically, as a securitized object reveals the social logic of energy relations and shows that the external energy strategies of China and its energy-rich counterparts are crucially dependent on their discursive politics of oil. Hence, the work of building collaborative and constructive energy relations with China, its partners in Kazakhstan, Russia, and elsewhere must consider not only the material realities of China’s energy industry (e.g., the amount of energy resources available in China or the existing and planned transportation routes) and the institutional settings of China’s energy policy (e.g., the structure of China’s energy government) but also the multiple symbolic meanings that energy resources acquire in China. Likewise, the best advice to China’s representatives is to be conscious about the way China is perceived in other states and take the world of words and ideas as seriously as the world of pumpjacks, pipelines, tankers, price charts, and long supply chains.
