Facilitating peaceful rise: The increasing role of geopolitics and domestic legitimacy in China's energy policy
2021
Boyd, Roger | Ufimtseva, Anastasia
An increasingly hostile geopolitical environment may be seen as threatening China's energy security in ways that could trigger conflict. Through an analysis of the impact of the interaction between fossil fuel import dependency and geopolitical conflict upon energy security-driven policy options, we identify the possibility that China's energy policies fit within a general strategy of conflict pre-emption. A “winning without fighting” orientation that generally sidesteps potential conflict while maintaining progress toward the strategic objective of China's continued rise. In addition, we analyze the domestic politicization of local air pollution, which represented a possible threat to the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). By responding to this politicization in a timely and highly effective manner, the CCP has side-stepped domestic conflict and enhanced its domestic legitimacy. As the largest global consumer and importer of fossil fuels and emitter of greenhouse gases, China's energy policy will be a core part of any low-carbon energy transition. However, our analysis finds that climate change is at best a minor independent determinant of China's energy policy. Ultimately, we argue that China's energy policies are intertwined and optimized with many other policy objectives, requiring an inter-disciplinary and holistic approach to fully understand their determinants.
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