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‘We want the world and we want it now!” Is this a useful characterisation of China’s energy policy?
Introduction介绍
中国经济的快速增长已引起国家相关方面的高度关注，包括能源政策（罗森和豪泽，2007; Cherni和肯特，2007年达卡尔，2007; Feiet人，2011）。随着世界经济与政治中国社科院（IWEP）研究所的研究表明，中国人的平均可用能源消耗相对有限，相对于全世界来说的平均值也是少的。供给与需求之间的矛盾十分尖锐（IWEP，2015年）。本文将解释中国的能源困境，并认为，中国的“走出去”政策，以确保其能源安全，而不是占主导地位的世界。随后，更多的细节将在以下五个部分描述中国的能源困境，中国在非洲的投资，分别围绕中国，中国目前的能源政策，中国威胁论的影响，纠纷描述。The rapid growth of China’s economy has drawn great attention to the related aspects of the country, including the energy policy (Rosen & Houser, 2007; Cherni& Kentish, 2007. Dhakal, 2007; Feiet. al., 2011). As the research of Institute of World Economics and Politics Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (IWEP) indicated, the available energy consumption per capita of China is relatively limited, comparing to the average value worldwide. The contradiction between supply and demand is quite acute (IWEP,2015). This essay will explain China’s energy dilemma and argue that China’s “going out policy” is put forward to ensure its energy security rather than dominate the world.The characterisation will firstly be briefly discussed. Subsequently, more details will be described in the following five parts about the China’s energy dilemma, China’s investment in Africa, disputes around China, China’s current energy policy, the influence of the China threat theory, respectively.
Argument论据
The statement may not be a useful characterisation for China’s energy policy.“We want the world and we want it now.”Literally, it indicates that China is trying to pursue a dominating approach from domestic reserves to international resources and take advantages of everything available to reach its ambitious goals. It could be a misrepresentation of China’s situation to some extend. As a developing country with 1.4 billion populations and fast-speed economy growth over 8% for years (NationalBureauofStatisticsofChinaChina Statistical Yearbook, 2006; 2011), China has a huge demand of energy, but the domestic reserves are relatively limited. For the sake of energy consumption, it has to import a great amount of oil, gas and other raw materials. To ensure its energy security,tremendous efforts have been made to explore the new reserves in East and South China Sea. At the same time, China also suffered in the pollutions caused by the overuse of dirty powers. To deal with that, China’s government put “against environment pollution” into the 12th Five-year Plan and spent a lot of money to research and develop the renewable energies. Therefore, the statement exaggerates the aggressiveness of China’s energy policy without considering about the fundamental realities of the country.Conclusively, this may not be a useful characterisation of China’s energy policy.
Part 1: China’s energy dilemma (400 words)第1部分：中国的能源困境
China has a huge demand of energy because of the population and economic development. The development of China’s energy policy is mainly in a race with its rapid economy growth. Coal is the most widely used fossil fuel in China due to its abundant domestic reserves (Cohen, 2014), but it also causes severe environmental damage (Zhang, He &Huo, 2012). Cleaner energy is severely neededwhile the techniques for new energy, such as wind, solar energy and some renewable biological fuels, are not mature enough for large-area alternating applications. Comparing to these, other traditional fossil fuels, including petroleum and natural gas, are more suitable and promising.
To replace the overused coal and maintain stable economy growth concurrently,China’s government invest for several projects abroad. The Central Asia-Chinagas pipeline is one of the most successful cases. Up to now, 3 main lines have been completed(Business Recorder, 2014), which contribute enormouslyin optimizing the overall energy consumption structure of China (China Stakes, 2008).Additionally, China’s government also fund infrastructure construction in Africa to obtain the exploration right or exchange for raw materials directly, especially in some countries with rich natural resources, including Egypt, Sudan, Nigeria andZambia(Bristow, 2007; Xinhua, 2009; Polgreen, 2009; Xu, 2010). To some extend, these measures are efficient and effective. However, leaning on importing may threat the country’s energy security in long term, with numerous uncertain factors, both politically and economically.
To avoid highly dependence on energy imports, tremendous efforts were also made on research and development to the exploration and drilling techniques inside the country. Simultaneously, exploration for newdeep-water oil and gas fields in the East and South China Seas were also started (Yahoo News, 2015), but this which caused some conflict in this area, which set China to another dilemma, to maintain a peaceful environment for economy growth or to protest for the proper rights and interests in the long term.
Conclusively, there are 3 problems related to China’s energy dilemma. Firstly, the acute contradiction between supply and demand should be gapped. Secondly, to what extend can China rely on importing needs to be calculated carefully. Thirdly, territorial dispute set another dilemma to China, to develop or stop to fight.
Part2: China’s investments in Africa----Neo-colonialism or FDI第2部分：中国在非洲的投资----新殖民主义或外国直接投资
China’s investments in Africa started decades ago and have been continuing through present days. Most of the financial investment and workforce were focused on the areas with rich natural resources. These facilities do help China secure its energy contradiction. Simultaneously, they improve the situations in Africa significantly. By the end of 2013, all the contracts signed by Chinese companies with African countries have summed up to approximate 400 billion US dollars. Cumulatively, more than 2200 kilometres railways and over 3500 kilometres driveways have been constructed.（Liu, 2014）Moreover, there are plentiful constructions, which were “made by China”, improving the living standard of African people impressively, for instance, the power plant in Garner, hospitals in Congo, the hydropower station in Zambia and so on.
Some western developed countries as well as African critics treat China’s investments in Africa as an approach of neo-colonialism，especially from the year of 2009, when China surpassed the United State as the largest trading partner with African countries(Times,2010) . To clarify the argument, the definitions of Neo-colonialism and FDI should firstly be introduced. As Sartre defined in Colonialism and Neo-colonialism, “neo-colonialism is the geopolitical practice of using capitalism, business globalization, and cultural imperialism to influence a country, in lieu of either direct military control or indirect political control”. (Sartre &Brewe, 2001) On the other hand, FDI is the abbreviation for Foreign Direct Investment, which is typical investment behaviours, through which the investors of a country invest abroad for production or management to grasp some certain rights of operational control.
Combining with the examples listed above, it is obvious that China’s investment in Africa is common commercial behaviour like other multinational companies but not neo-colonialism. As the development of economic globalization, countries rely on each other more than before. Less-developed countries or even some developing countries commonly export their raw materials to get more foreign direct investmentsfor further development. The level of economic development in some African countries limits their industrial structures. They could rely on nothing but importing the non-renewable resources, whoever the trading partners are. Foreign exchange reserve is a kind of free trade that should not be blamed.
Country’s economic and technology aids always served to its political and economic purpose that is not striking news any more. US, Japan and EU has done it for decades of years. China’s free aids in Africa and South America should not be blamed and accused as the conspiracy. Furthermore, as a researcher of South African Institute of International Affairs claimed, China’s investment for infrastructure constructions were different from those of some other countries in several aspects. One of the most important differences was that all the loans were applied to promote the financing capacity of the African countries without any political conditions (Yuan, 2014).
Therefore, more respects and fairness should be given to China’s investment while this may be difficult with the misleading opinions of some superpower. To give an extreme example, China invested billions of dollars in Libya to exchange their resources. But USinstigate the civil war and controlled the resources through the new government. Compared with China’s long-term investment, whichhas been lost in the civil war, US’ military action seems more efficient. However, the influence to the African countries exhibits an immeasurably vast difference. #p#分页标题#e#
Part3: The disputes around China----pursue hegemony or fight for security第三部分：中国周边争议----追求霸权或安全打
China’s claim on East and South China Sea seems too ambitious, but it is not the only country who claimed on this area. Countries in East and Southeast Asia fight for this area for a long time, aiming at the sizable oil and gas field. The disputes exist not only between China and other Southeast Asian countries, such as Vietnam, Philippines, and Malaysia.These countries also claimed on it for each other. The disputes,which China is engaged in, may be exaggerated by the media because of the special position it stands. As a new-born influential economy entity, China has to deal with pressures from many aspects. With the influence from the modest traditional Chinese culture, the foreign policy of China is not as strong as its economy growth. To stabilize the situations for peaceful development, the great power bears more aggressiveness than its enamouring countries, although the energy recourses are of vital importance to any countries. Without consideration of these biases, what do the disputes around China stand for, pursuing hegemony or fighting for security conservatively?
Although the long-term argument, whether China has surpassed the US to be the largest energy consuming country, between the International Energy Agency and China’s government has not reached an agreement yet, the fact that China is one of the largest energy user is obvious. (Wall Street Journal, 2010) As far as the international energy market is concerned, the rise of China has not given the country more initiative. Worse, as a big energy consuming country, it becomes more vulnerable to plenty of uncontrollable factors. In addition to the fact that the great reserve of gas and oil in South China Sea can provide a lot of support for China’s economic development, the geographical position of the South China Sea is of vital importance to its energy security. China’s oil imports suppliesover 70% of its total consumption. Moreover, a large proportion of the oil ships have to sail through this area. Therefore, China cannot give up arguing for its exploration right as well as territorial sovereigntyin this key region. “Lay the disputes aside and seek joint development” policy is China’s choice. Therefore, the trivial conflictions are unavoidable, even between the Southeast Asian countries themselves. China’s government fights merely for reasonable energy security rather than pursue hegemony.
As for this issue, the US could be a counter-example. As the only superpower with the ability to pursue hegemony, it has started wars forenergy，among which the Iraq war is a notorious case. The US crash through the far distance to uphold justice in a middle eastern country, while China tries hardto avoidprovoking any conflicts with its neighbours and insist to negotiate with these countries. Considering about the uncontrollable factor caused by the US military force that surrounds China in this area, the occasional protest of the China’s government seems to be more meaningful. The US military bases around this area are a giant threat to China.Once they block the ship lane in South and East China Sea for some “reasonable” excuse that would be a disaster for China’s energy security.
All things considered, China cannot lose its control to this area.To secure its energy safety, disputes may be unavoidable in some cases. Although the China’s government tries to “lay the disputes aside and seek joint development ”, intensebehaviours with regard to the disputes should be allowed.
Part4: China’s current energy policy第4部分：中国目前的能源政策
China faced a great challenge for its energy security, but its current energy policy is not as aggressive as some large energy consuming countries, which take all feasible approaches toexplore the energy resources from outside world as much as possible. Its energy policy goes along with its mild foreign policy. Especially for the case of its investments in Africa, the advantages of the infrastructure will last long, which helps the trading countries get rid of the undeveloped situation earlier.
Additionally, China also made a lot of effort to develop the clean energy. The “clean energy policy” requires people to use more gas rather than coal and rebuild the inefficient coal ovens to avoid unnecessary pollution caused by low energy utilization rate. Traditional clean energies, such as nuclear energy, solar energy, wind and hydro energy, have been widely applied according to the local conditions (Shukman, 2014). Renewable energies, for example, the biomass fuels, are also been studied (Zhang et. al.，2009). If these measures work efficiently, they will reduce China’s reliance on importing gas and oil.
On the other hand for the “clean energy policy”, China’s government take plentiful leading measures to deal with the present pollution problems. As an indicative planning with the highest authority, the 12th Five-year Plan include “against environment pollution” into its targets and set guide instructions for the economy structure transition, which focused on sustainability (Yuan &Zuo, 2011). Government set emission limit to the factories and plants, besides, extra rewards are subsidised to the companies that can reduce the discharge of pollutants.Different from the policies of the early years, where “development is the absolute principle” and the increase of Gross Domestic Product was treated more importantly than any other side effects. The local government also has to meet the environment target not only economic and employment target like before.
Furthermore，the landmark agreement about carbon emission reduction exhibits the “clean energy policy” of China internationally and confirms its willing to work with international community in deal with the climate change issues.
Conclusively, the mild energy trading policy exhibits China’s friendly cooperative willingness to the developing countries with rich resources; the “clean energy policy” shows China’s sense of responsibilityas a large energy consuming economy entity.
Part 5: Who benefit from the China Threat Theory?第5部分：谁从中国威胁论受益？
Learning from the cases above and scientific analysis available (Han et. al. , 2014), China’s energy policy is not so different from those of the other countries. If so, why the China Threat Theory is so popular nowadays? Who create and propagateit? Actually, to describe China as a greedy monster is a political rhetoric to persuade the countries with rich energy reserves renounce to continue doing business with China, and hence the view-monger will have more opportunities to obtain the resources for their owe benefits. It is a geopolitics problem.
As the absolute super power, the US may be the only country that can play chess through the world, whichhelps to remain its hegemony, ensure its energy security and the policy priority of international affairs. When the US involved in the Iraq war in Middle East for energy via such violent approach, China invest great amount of money in Africa to exchange for the raw material and even spread the tentacles into South America which is the traditional back yard of US, which may make theUS feel threatened. Its following“return to Asia-Pacific Strategy” is the evidence for its political counterattack.
Japan is another active supporter of the China Threat Theory. It suffers from the same situation as China does, where resources are highly demanded butlack of reservation. It relies too much on import and also invests in Africa and hence competes with China to some extend.It tries to take advantage of The Diaoyu IslandsDispute to ruin the reputation of China, which may bring it some benefits in the resourcecompetition.
Conclusion:总结
China’s going out policy seems ambitious, but it is just an inevitable choice for a big economic entity. EU build up pipelines from East Europe, US and Japan also invest in Africa and South America and the conflicts caused by energy in Middle East was a long story. China is not a greedy monster who wants to put everything into its pocket, but just to ensure its energy security and support of economic growth.
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