Russo-Chinese Energy Relations: Politics in Command

Blue Ibex Ltd.
July 31, 2006
40 Pages - SKU: GMBP1321091
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Countries covered: China, Russia

Russo-Chinese Energy Relations: Politics in Command

 
This report makes the point that in both Russia and China it is politics - and not market or commercial considerations - that largely drive energy relationships with each other and the outside world.  For both countries, energy and energy security is regarded as a strategic asset and/or objective that are at risk from outside forces.  Moreover, both countries are taking a statist - in Russia even patrimonial - approach to energy issues.  Therefore cooperation between Russia and China will be difficult even though Russia wants to sell and China wants to buy.  The conditions that each state has attached to their energy policies ironically preclude the kind of easy cooperation seen in other strategic and political issues between Moscow and Beijing. Thus in both Central and Northeast Asia, Russia has blocked Chinese efforts to realize its version of energy security, yet it has not been able to come up either with the resources or means for a coherent policy of supplying China with reliable quantities of energy that would lead China away from Middle Eastern and other producers.  Given the political dimension in both states, the under-fulfilment of the potential for Russia to supply China will continue and continue as well to be a source of strain in their relationship.

Stephen Blank is Professor of Russian National Security Studies at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College. Dr. Blank has been an Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute since 1989. In 1998-2001 he was Douglas MacArthur Professor of Research at the War college. Prior to this appointment Dr. Blank was Associate Professor for Soviet Studies at the Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education of Air University at Maxwell AFB. Dr. Blank's M.A. and Ph.D. are in Russian History from the University of Chicago. He has published over 400 articles and monographs on Soviet/Russian military and foreign policies. His most recent book is Natural Allies?: Regional Security in Asia and Prospects for Indo-American Strategic Cooperation, Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2005. Dr. Blank is also the author of a study of the Soviet Commissariat of Nationalities, The Sorcerer as Apprentice: Stalin's Commissariat of Nationalities, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994 and the co-editor of The Soviet Military and the Future, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1992.


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