Research On Energy Cooperation Between China And Central Asian Countries Since The 21st Century

Oil and natural gas are two strategic resources serving as an important driving forcefor economic development of all countries. With China’s rapid growth in the21stcentury, its energy demand continues to rise, along with its dependence on foreign oiland gas sources, making it a major pressing issue for China to develop new energyimport channels and deepen cooperation with energy suppliers. China’s overseasenergy cooperation, driven by the combined efforts by the government and energycorporations, has made substantial progress, collaborating with partners in more than30countries and areas around the globe.The Caspian and central Asian region is considered "the second Persian Gulf" forits rich reserves of oil and gas, and the central Asian countries are in an ideal situationto supply oil and gas via pipelines to China, to which they are adjacent, with apositive impact on China’s effort to expend oil and gas import, and diversify supplychannels. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have the richest oil and gas reserves amongthe five central Asian countries, and are keys to China’s energy cooperation in centralAsia. The China-Kazakhstan crude oil pipeline and the China-Turkmenistan naturalgas production and purchase agreement are significant milestones in China-CentralAsia energy cooperation, and will benefit long-term cooperation among the countries.However, given its strategic importance and rich energy reserve, central Asia hasalways been a major battleground for world powers. So far, Russia, the United Statesand the European Union all have their respective central Asia policies, vying for its oiland gas, which creates a great challenge to China’s energy cooperation with centralAsian countries. Therefore, China must carefully handle its relations with the powersand improve its status in central Asian affairs on the platform of the ShanghaiCooperation Organization, to establish closer ties for energy cooperation with centralAsian countries.