Russia Energy Hegemony
Li Jin Di student number: s06124
Research Paper Supervisor : Dr. Sekou Conde
Minzhu University of China
2006-2007 Academic Year
A. Definition of hegemony
Hegemony in language can be defined in a variety of ways. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English says “a situation in which one state or country controls others.” In the Oxford English Dictionary, hegemony is “control by one country, organization, etc. over other countries, etc. within a particular group.” During the cold war, hegemony means capitalist hegemony of the United States and socialist hegemony of the Soviet Union. “Both sides featured superpowers (supported by their clients) battling to dominate the arms race and become the supreme world superpower.”(Wikipedia) In this essay, the subject that is going to be discussed is the hegemony caused by Russia energy.
B. Crisis of Ukraine natural gas
Russia energy hegemony appears in many ways, for example the crisis of Ukraine natural gas not long ago. On 2006 January 1st, Russia ceased supplying natural gas to Ukraine, which caused disastrous results, for the supplying of central heating and hot water was cut off with it during the winter. Not only Ukraine, many European countries are dependent on Russia natural gas, and many economic and political factors complicated the situation. Many experts warned that European countries should pay more attention to the energy security. China is Russia’s nearest neighbors. They have 4300 kilometers common borders, and Russia energy is something that China is eager to purchase, for its development demanding it. In view of Russia energy hegemony will have a great impact on the security of China energy; China should take several active measures to mitigate the influence.
In my essay, I first introduce the rich recourses of Russia energy and the importance of energy in a country’s economy, military and national security. Then I analyze the endangered situation of energy security in China to show it is necessary for us to take actions to prevent the influence of Russia energy hegemony. And at last I make some suggestions, putting forward some measures.
I Importance of energy and influence of Russia
Russia is one of the countries that have greatest resources of energy. Its prospective resource of oil is 84, 56 billion tons, which covers 13% of the whole resources of oil of the world. Its oil is distributed over the areas of western Siberia, Eastern Siberia and Far East. Russia export of the oil takes the second place of the world, inferior to Saudi Arabia. It even once overtook Saudi Arabia and reached 7, 3 million barrels per day.
Another factor that determines Russia status in the world energy market is its abundance resource of natural gas, whose reserve and output cover 34.4% and 27.9% of the whole world. Being the richest country in the resource of natural gas, Russia has more than 700 gas field, 70% of which is in the western Siberia.
Energy plays an indispensable role in modern world, which can be seen from three aspects:
Economy: energy can accelerate the development of economy. Take oil as an example. Oil is considered as the “blood of industry” and “black gold”. It is not only used as a fuel of automobiles, airplanes and machines, but also is a valuable raw material of chemical industry. There are more than 5000 chemical industry products being made by oil.
Military: energy can not only influence a country’s economy, but also its military security. It is true especially for oil. Since the day oil was discovered, it is related with war. With the military technology, the degree of dependence upon the oil is increasing. No oil, no war can be lasting; and no oil, no victory can achieve. In every war in 20th century, the consumption of oil is astonished. For example, during the First World War, the amount of oil consumption is 1.325 million tons, i.e. 0.32 kilos per capita per day.
National security: energy will be a useful counter in the political and diplomatic relationship. Just like Ukraine, a country lacking energy is easily to be controlled by others supplying energy. Under this situation, national security is endangered.
II Endangered energy security
Mason Ritchie in his book “energy and the world politics,” divided energy security into the importing country’s energy security and exporting countries’s energy security. He believes that, there are at least three different interpretations of energy security for importing countries: first, energy security can be narrowly interpreted that the protection of a nation during the war to receive adequate energy supply. Second, energy security can be broadly construed as to ensure adequate energy supply, so that the national economy can maintain a normal level. Third, energy security can be seen as ensuring an adequate supply of energy, enable the national economy to be politically acceptable manner. For exporting countries, energy security can only be seen as ownership of the energy resources of national sovereignty; or generalized to be understood as a sovereign right of resources coupled with access to foreign markets.
A. Domestic energy resource
In term of oil resource, it is unreasonable to mark China as “have-not” country. On the contrary, China used to be a moderate oil exporter and to export several hundred tons of crude oil to Japan, during 1980s. But now, “the three main oil producing zones--Daqing, Shengli and Liaoohe, situated in the northern and north eastern parts of China, are considered to nearing depletion and can sustain their current level of production only by additional and sound investment”[1]. Today, the growth of domestic oil supply is primarily associated with the development of new fields in Xinjiang province in western China, and the exploration of offshore oil the East China Sea. Even though, by most estimates, these sources—no doubt will increase the output in the year to come—still fail to meet the growing demand. In Xinjiang province, the main problem in oil exploration is the complex geological structure of the oilfields and the need for sophisticated extracting technology and equipment; as to offshore oil in East China Sea, it is much more costly to extract than the onshore oil. Therefore, until recently, the offshore oil account for less than 7% of total oil supply. All these factors make the investment risk and production cost quite high in the oil exploration in such regions.
B. Heavy reliance on import energy
China has overtaken Japan to become the world’s second largest oil consumer just after the United States. It is estimated that the demand will continue to grow at 5% or more annually in the coming years because of country’s industrialization and urbanization plus the increasing number of automobiles on the road. Currently, China satisfy one third of its oil demand by import, and expect to rise to about a half in 2010. In the coming decade, the growth rate of the gap between demand and domestic supply will continue to increase. The import oil would rise to 43% of total consumption in 2010. The following table[2] forecast the shortfall for the coming decades.
2000
2010
2020
2050
Demand
200
300
400
500
Supply
160
170
180
100
Shortfall
40
130
220
400
Dependence on import %
20
43
55
80
From the strategic and security consideration, the heavy reliance on import oil would risk the national economy seriously. Since China’s petrochemical industry has not yet formed the effective defending system towards the global oil price fluctuation, the up and down of oil price in international market is doom to exert tremendous effect in the China’s economic performance.
III Counter measures
A. Economize the amount of consumption
Priority to energy conservation should be the basic national police. Because much energy such as oil and natural gas are nonrenewable resources, if China does not take this road, there is no way out. China's energy strategy should become more prominent conservation; establish a path of energy-saving concepts embodied sustainable development. Relying on the conventional energy has been difficult to achieve new industrialization development goals. In conservation areas, first generalized to the economy, that is, restructuring the economy, industrial restructuring, change the mode of growth; be made extensive management and the traditional path of industrialization. Second narrow the conservation; it is necessary to vigorously develop energy-saving products, and efforts to reduce the intensity and gradually accelerating energy-saving legislation.
B. Bilateral cooperation with Russia
1. China and Russia have good bilateral relations
Since the 90s of the 20th century, the development of Sino-Russian relations has achieved significant results. In 1996 the two sides decided to develop a 21st century strategic partnership of cooperation, and set up a mechanism for regular meetings of the leaders of the two countries. In July 2001 the Sino-Russian Good-Neighborly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation was signed, which set down the peace and friendship from generation to generation in legal form. In October 2004 heads of two countries approved “Sino-Russian Good-Neighborly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation Program”. Foreign Ministers of the two countries signed the “People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation on the Eastern Section of the Sino-Russian Border supplementary agreement,” thus the Sino-Russian boundary line to ascertain all. “Program” and “supplementary agreement” between the two countries is an important milestone indicates that the two countries have entered a new stage of development, which laid a solid foundation for the two countries cooperation in [...]
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