Feeding Development: China's Ongoing Search for Energy Security - Malacca Dilemma, Foreign Oil Reliance, Shale Oil Development, Stopgap Natural Gas, Renewables Push to Cut Pollution and Fossil Fuels

This informative report from March 2019 has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. Over the last decade, China has taken significant steps to develop a renewable energy framework in an effort to lessen reliance on coal and its associated health and environmental impacts. This thesis will seek to explain China's domestic and foreign energy-policy approach to dealing with the challenges of maintaining a consistent, stable supply of fuel for its growing economy. This thesis will also examine the implications of China's policy changes for the United States with regard to potential security challenges as well as future cooperation opportunities. China's energy framework over the coming decades is based on three key components. The first is development of new renewable energy generation and transmission capacity. The second is increased natural gas usage. Rather than wait for renewable energy sources to fully replace coal generation, China is turning to natural gas as a stop-gap measure in the short-term to rapidly reduce coal usage and fill some of the generation capacity that renewable sources are as yet unable to. The third component is China's pursuit of new and varied sources of oil as demand continues to grow. Structured as a myriad of bilateral agreements with oil-producing nations, China is conducting energy diplomacy throughout the Middle East and Africa. These three components of a comprehensive energy policy show the path that China is on to achieve its 2030 clean energy goals and become the world leader in clean energy technology.

This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

As the world's largest consumer and importer of energy, China is in a position that is both uniquely vulnerable, as well as highly influential in the world energy market. As China's economy has grown, so too have its energy needs. According to the International Energy Agency, China's total energy generation capacity grew from less than 300 GW in 2000 to almost 1900 GW in 2017. In addition, the annual average growth of passenger car fuel use was almost 150,000 barrels per day over the same period. As a general principle, countries look for energy sources that best provide for three core needs: economic security, geopolitical security, and environmental security. In pursuit of these needs, China has had to make certain shifts in its energy goals and policies, both domestic and international. The primary goal of this thesis is to explain China's domestic and foreign energy policy approach to dealing with the challenges of maintaining a consistent, stable supply of fuel for its growing economy. To do so, this thesis will seek to answer the question: What steps has China taken over the last two decades to address the challenge of maintaining consistently high rates of growth fueled by an ever-increasing need for energy security? In addition, this thesis will look at the ways in which China's energy policy has evolved to embrace recent technological innovations like renewable energy in the form of solar, wind, and hydro, as well as shale oil boom extraction techniques like fracking. This thesis will also examine the way in which China's pursuit of oil and natural gas imports has impacted its relationship with producer nations and the larger impact to the global energy market.