because of its wider international context and multilateral nature. Looking from demand or supply-side perspectives, energy policy is an interaction between two or more actors. This interaction often includes geopolitics as well as economics. In fact, it can safely be said that trade in energy is inherently a geopolitical transaction no matter how big role economic and trade interests may play. It is geographic, first, because of the geological nature of the
commodity itself which is found arrested in underground reserves, and second, because of the need to transport the energy in large amounts through maritime and/or overland routes. It is political since, although most of the transactions are done through international institutions and/or market mechanisms, energy security is exclusively a state affair. The strategic
importance of oil and natural gas for national economic development and the unequal distribution of it across regions add to the risks and uncertainties. Beijing could (and certainly does) invest and dedicate significant national wealth and manpower on the research and production of advanced military technologies when they are not available on the global market due to sanctions or other restrictions, but, if/when lacked domestically, hydrocarbon resources have to be found and brought home from elsewhere as it cannot be fully substituted otherwise.
As a net importer of crude oil and natural gas, for Beijing, energy security involves three interrelated layers. The first layer, which takes security in narrower sense, ensures that national industrial production is maintained in times of crisis/war. The second layer, which takes security in a broader sense, means that adequate supply of energy is ensured so that national economy is sustained at normal levels. The final layer requires that adequate amount of energy is
ensured so that economic growth is sustained at a politically acceptable rate (Yu and Dai, 2012:
108).101 In another words, like other energy-dependent countries, for Beijing, energy security involves economic security (ensuring fuel for industrial consumption and transportation), political security (domestic stability), and military/strategic security (providing fuel for the land, air and marine units and protecting vital interests of the country, including sea and land routes).
101 Comparatively speaking, from the oil exporters’ perspective, the three layers of energy security involve: 1.
Maintaining sovereignty over national resources; 2. Ensuring access to foreign markets; and 3. Ensuring the security of the earnings from energy exports.
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Accordingly, the geopolitics of energy has considerable impact on contemporary great power interaction, the leading example of which is the China-US bilateral relations in the Greater Middle East. The focal point of contention between Washington and Beijing is the fact that the two capitals view the Middle East from radically different perspectives: Whereas China looks at the region largely from the lens of economics and pursues non-interventionism in the region’s domestic affairs, the United States views the region from geopolitical security
perspective and promotes a mixture of realpolitik and idealpolitik. Idealism is not completely absent in the Chinese foreign relations; however, it is much less emphasized and never imposed. Also, emphasis on economic pragmatism does not necessarily mean that Beijing’s Middle East diplomacy is frozen in time; quite the contrary, it has been evolving as the country’s needs and capabilities evolve (Olimat, 2010: 308-310). Nevertheless, this research sheds light on the contentious nature of China-US relationship in the Middle East and
competition for greater influence (for divergent reasons of national interest). It has been shown that as a rising power, China’s growing national capabilities further broaden the existing policy discord, which, in turn, leads to a great power competition. Nowhere other than the Asia Pacific could this competition be viewed as vividly as it is in the Middle East.
It is understood that China’s energy (oil and natural gas, to be exact) security arises from a structural contradiction between the rising demand for clean-burning (non-coal) and safe (non-nuclear) resources and the significant domestic shortage. Hence, the central objective of the Chinese energy security policy is to address the above mentioned contradiction with the least possible internal and external negative consequences. Internal factors, in this regard, inform external factors. Internally, the government needs to provide adequate amount of energy at reasonable prices whereas, externally, it needs to maintain positive international cooperation while executing energy diplomacy based on going abroad strategy. The strategic goal of China’s energy security policy is to obtain adequate, stable and diversified oil and gas supply at a reasonable price. It follows that in no other region have China’s efforts to enable security in energy come under greater pressure than in the Middle East. Because of the
complicated geopolitical situation of the region and the level of great power involvement, China has faced many difficulties such as separating its trade in energy from nuclear proliferation
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concerns, the questionable human rights records of some of the resource-rich countries, ensuring security of the sea lanes dominated by the US and through which majority of China’s energy imports move, political crises and civil wars in the region, and protection of its energy-related investments such as oil and gas development and exploitation structures (refineries, plants, pipelines and ports) (Lei, 2012: 58-61).
Hence, of the three options to execute its Middle East energy policy, namely trade, oil diplomacy and brute force, China rules out the third option, and focuses on the second one, that is diplomacy, and, to a lesser degree, trade. Understood as the active involvement of the central government in foreign energy transactions in an effort to achieve certain national goals, including enhancing energy security and realizing sustainable economic growth (Chen, 2008), oil diplomacy for Beijing is a strategic necessity rather than an option. It is beyond dispute that, at the heart of China’s Middle East diplomacy lays oil. Because the Middle East is the only region that could provide a consistent supply of oil, China is drawn into the region and compelled to engage a wide spectrum of domestic and foreign actors. What is called energy security policy is in essence nothing but the interplay among these actors. The way Chinese policy is shaped suggests that Beijing interacts with the regional players mostly according to its practical needs rather than historical or ideological considerations. Hence, China does energy business with both Iran and Saudi Arabia whereas the US lacks the ability/flexibility to do so.
It has been found in this study that China’s energy policy creates discord between Beijing and Washington. In this respect, some strategists and analysts in Washington levels numerous accusations at China. Among those accusations are rapid increase in China’s energy demand that pushes up world’s energy prices, its going-out strategy, (the degree of)
participation in the global governance of energy security, its alleged mercantilist energy policy, and relationship with the rogue states. Through this research, answers to these questions have been sought. For example, as far as China’s fast growing energy demand is concerned, although increase in demand may play some role, geopolitics is obviously a greater factor in terms of price fluctuations. For example, US-led wars and sanctions in the Middle East contributed more to the price hikes than increase in Chinese imports. Also, looking from the supply side, factors such as insufficient investment in exploration and refining capacity, inefficiency, and
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unwillingness of the OPEC to increase daily output make greater impact on energy prices than China’s hoarding behavior (Lei and Xuejun, 2007: 217-218).
On the geopolitical plane, it is true that Washington remains concerned about China’s relationship with countries sanctioned or ostracized by the West. To defend its position, Washington argues that nations such as Iran, Sudan or Venezuela have questionable human rights record, are governed by undemocratic administrations/strongmen, and repressive. But it glosses over the fact that the second largest oil exporter to the US is Saudi Arabia and it enjoys solid relationship with Washington despite that even the slightest political and religious dissent is oppressed in the country and universal suffrage and multi-party elections are non-existent.
Hence, Beijing sees that such US accusations are not sincere at the least and are often politically motivated. As a matter of fact, it can safely be said that China’s ties with the ME is more or less limited to trade (mainly in energy) and lacks the close military underpinnings that define US’
Middle East strategy. Indeed, , arms deals with Arabian Gulf countries helped push United States weapons sales in the region to a record $66.3 billion in 2011, rendering the United States the largest arms exporter to the region’s non-democracies.102 China’s non-democratic allies do not receive such benevolence.
Indeed, China’s foreign policy towards the Middle East has remained structurally different from that of the United States, which has got a dominant position in the region in postwar era. China did not have much engagement with the Middle East during the Maoist era except for some unsuccessful revolutionary rhetoric that it abandoned afterwards. Its real engagement with the region started from the 1990s, after the end of the Cold-War. But still, Beijing did not intend to challenge the US dominance in the region but has been forced to become more assertive over the past decade to protect its (mainly energy-related) interests there.
To be sure “the age of Chinese passivity in the Middle East is over. Beijing will play an increasingly active role in the region with the goal of securing its own energy security” (Jin, 2005). Yet, this does not mean that China wants intentionally to confront the United States or
102 For details, visit http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/us-arms-sales-hit-record-high-over-deals-with-arabian-gulf-countries.
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others to impose its will. Rather, despite of differences of opinion, China still takes US concerns seriously and tries to maintain a strategic balance as it did during the First and Second Gulf Wars and has been doing in the case of Iran currently. Nevertheless, even with its well-articulated foreign policy in the Middle East, China has come under continued US pressure in many instances. Essentially, China has not openly challenged the US in the MENA region just as it also has not succumbed to each and every US requests.
China is concerned that its energy vulnerability could be exploited by others (Chang, 2001: 239). Currently, Beijing faces a number of challenges to its energy security in the Broader Middle East. Some of these problems and challenges are obviously the result of the region’s historical conditions whereas the others arise from a greater geopolitical context. All in all, it is possible to identify various factors that constrain and endanger China’s energy security in the Middle East:
(a) Foreign intervention in the region. Great power politics has traditionally been a part of the Middle Eastern geopolitics. In the 1800s France and Britain, and in the 19th and 20th centuries, the United States, greatly affected the region’s strategic landscape. More recently, United States’ war on terrorism and the Arab Spring from the late 2010, continued to shape the Middle East. China, in this respect, has remained a secondary player, at best, with little leverage to pursue and protect its geopolitical and economic interests in the region.
(b) Instability in the Broader Middle East has negatively impacted China’s energy prospective. For example, political upheaval in Libya cost China significant amount of money mainly in the form of losses in energy and construction related contracts.103
(c) Ethnic and sectarian turbulences in the Middle East also have had indirect implications for China’s national security due to its own restive Xinjiang
103 For more details, visit, “China says suffers "large-scale" economic losses in Libya,” Reuters, February 24, 2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/24/libya-protests-china-idAFTOE71N06L20110224.
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region.104 Considering that Northwestern China is one of China’s two largest oil producing regions, political stability and peace in the Middle East as well as strong relationship and influence in the region’s key players is important for China not simply because of its energy security but also greater national security.
Previous studies on energy security policy drew heavily on two primary theories:
Classical realism and liberal institutionalism. Although these explanations have thus far
provided valuable insights into states’ behavior in an anarchical (realpolitik) or institutionalized (idealpolitik) environment, they suggest little with regard to power parity and transition in international relations, and to the ensuing dyadic competition and tension. In this study it has been argued that China-US relations in the Middle East is bound to become more competitive because of two key developments: First, the policy discord caused by China’s energy-driven and the US’ security-driven strategy in the Middle East has created growing friction between the two countries’ respective regional policies. Second, China’s growing national power has increasingly enabled the country to pursue policies in the Middle East less in line with the US interests and its status as a dominant power. Thus, national power and policy discord act as mutually inclusive agents, that is, national power gives way to policy discord. Energy security, in this case, is a strong factor that feeds the dyadic discord between China and the US. Thus, China-US relations in the Middle East are bound to be more contentious in both situations:
whether China pursues economics-led policy or moves beyond it and adopts, as it has done in Sudan (multi-level involvement) or in Syria (proactive engagement).
China’s push for energy security in the Greater Middle East has been a source of conflict with the United States although, at the moment, it seems manageable. It is obvious that both sides view the other’s actions with suspicion, at best (Leverett & Bader, 2005-06: 196). For example, whereas the US questions the motive behind China’s relations with countries held in contempt by the Western international community such as Iran and Sudan, China feels
unsecured with the degree of domination the US Navy enjoys in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
104 According to the various reports on the terrorist attacks in June 2013 in China’s Xinjiang, the terrorists were trained in Syria. For details see, “China state media blames Syria rebels for Xinjiang violence,” Reuters, Jul 1, 2013.
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Washington fears that, over time, Chinese influence in the Middle East and North Africa might create a bloc independent of the US dominance and impositions; least of it being the wave of democratization and self-determination sweeping through the region since the late 2010.
Beijing views the US insistence on popular representation in Iran, Sudan, Libya or Syria as insincere since the closest US allies in the Gulf region are dominantly monarchic and repressive.
In this respect, the popular Arab revolts (known also as the Arab Spring) has the very potential to further deepen the China-US policy discord and strategic competition as has been seen in the cases of Libya and Syria. In Libya, after the country fell into a bloody civil war, although China green-lighted a UN-imposed no-fly zone by the NATO through a vote of
abstention, later the PRC felt to be betrayed) because, according to Beijing, the March 17, 2011 UN-mandate (Resolution 1973) was exploited and, rather than being used to prevent the Libyan Air Force from bombing civilian areas with fighter jets and attack helicopters, it was used as a pretext to destroy any moving object on the ground (Gaddafi’s own convoy trying to flee the country being the victim of such an action, which resulted in the brutal execution of the Libyan leader in the hands of his captors) that belonged to the Libyan security forces (Paul, 2012).105 Perhaps thanks to the lessons learned in Libya, this time in Syria, alongside with Russia, China has thus far cast three vetoes at the UN Security Council against UN Resolutions condemning Damascus and calling for punitive action against President Bashar Al-Assad,106 prompting former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to suggest that “Moscow and Beijing should pay a price since they are holding up progress and blockading it [in Syria].” Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, called the Russian and Chinese vetoes "disgusting and shameful."107
China has thus far reacted to the Arab Spring ambiguously at best, often considering it from an economic, and to a lesser degree, geostrategic, perspective. In the cases of Libya and
105 In June 17, 2011, in a joint declaration signed in the Kremlin by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao, it is emphasized that political solutions to the Libya crisis should be found rather than punitive actions against Gaddafi. “Russia and China Team Up Against NATO Libya Campaign,” Forbes, June 17, 2011.
106 The reasons behind the Chinese action could be viewed from two perspectives. One was its non-interference principle and the opposition of using forces to solve disagreement; the other could be a gesture to support its political ally, the Russians, as the two share more in international affairs. Analysis draws from interview with Interviewee No. 6. Author’s e-mail correspondence with Dr. Xuanli Liao, September 27, 2013.
107 “Clinton says Russia, China should 'pay price' over Syria,” CS Monitor, July 6, 2012.
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Syria, for example, China’s involvement has been mentioned mostly in the context of its economic interests that may be disrupted as a result of regime changes in Arab capitals. For example, in Libya during the rebellion against Gaddafi, an official at the Libyan rebel-run oil firm, AGOCO, said that Russian and Chinese firms could lose out on oil contracts for failing to back the rebellion against Gaddafi. This prompted the deputy head of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce's trade department, Wen Zhongliang, to make the following statement: “We hope that after a return to stability in Libya, Libya will continue to protect the interests and rights of Chinese investors and we hope to continue investment and economic cooperation with Libya.”108
In Syria, China’s economic interests are less pronounced,109 ex tempore, since Syria is not a major producer and exporter of oil and/or natural gas, commodities that almost
singlehandedly tie China to the region. However, in the larger context of the Iraq, Syria and Iran strategic axis, the Syrian crisis involves a fragile mixture of geopolitics and economics. In
addition to a certain degree of military relationship,110 China’s present Syria strategy is related to the country’s “geostrategic consideration of the energy-rich Middle East” (Brennan, 2013).
Indeed, in the larger scheme of Middle Eastern geopolitics, China does not want to lose the few trusted partners out to the West through regime change. Syria, in this case, is of crucial
importance because it holds the key to an intervention against Iran. If Syria falls in the hands of the opposition forces, Iran will be greatly isolated and surrounded by unfriendly nations on all sides. On top of all, in the words of He Wenping, director of African Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China’s reaction to the Arab Spring falls well within the traditional
importance because it holds the key to an intervention against Iran. If Syria falls in the hands of the opposition forces, Iran will be greatly isolated and surrounded by unfriendly nations on all sides. On top of all, in the words of He Wenping, director of African Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China’s reaction to the Arab Spring falls well within the traditional