The European Union's Common Energy Diplomacy And Its Enlightenment On China

Since entering 21st century,especially after the Iraq War,a new round of world energy resource competition has been more and more intense.All the countries and regions in the world are adjusting their own energy strategies and tactics rapidly to ensure energy security supply.As the largest and highest level of regional economic integrated organizations in the world,it is very important for the European Union(EU) to ensure energy security supply.And the EU has a high degree of dependence on foreign energy.With the changes of the international energy order and geopolitical factors in recent years,the EU's energy security will face a number of possible risks and practical challenges.Foreign energy supply has been making an increasingly profound impact on the EU's economic competitiveness,the normal operation of society and the life style of the EU member states.In order to meet the increasingly severe energy challenges,the European Commission officially promulgated Green Paper on energy policy of a "sustainable development, competitiveness and security of European energy strategy" in March 2006.In external energy relations,the EU started to pay more attention to participation in international energy competition with "one voice".Based on the internal unified energy market and by means of the expanding policy and the surrounding one,the EU carries out a full range of energy diplomacy.Through the channels such as trying to set up "Pan-European Energy Community", creating more than an "energy corridor",establishing the energy strategy partnership as well as dialogue mechanisms,the EU tries to achieve strategic objectives of the diversification of energy varieties and source of imports and transport channels so as to reduce the dependence on foreign energy to ensure energy security.Energy diplomacy has become an important component of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy,and it will certainly have a profound impact on the future direction of the EU's external relations.At the same time,the EU's common energy diplomacy strategy and practice has a profound enlightenment and reference significance on formulating and implementing China's energy security strategy.This article is divided into four parts.The first part analyses the theory and background of the EU's common energy diplomacy.It mainly gives a basic introduction and analysis to the relevant theory and practical background of the EU's common energy diplomacy.In theoretical analysis part,the author introduces the concept and type of energy diplomacy,then describes the meaning and goal orientation of the EU's common energy diplomacy.Mainly from the point of view of energy security,the author sums up four aspects of the EU's common energy diplomacy practical background in background analysis part:the rising trend of the EU's external energy dependence,the increasing risks of the EU energy geopolitics,the erratic fluctuations of energy prices and the challenges of "energy nationalism" policy,the abrupt rise of multiple actors in the international energy order.Among these problems,the author focuses on energy geopolitical risks confronted by the EU.The second part discusses the evolution and tactics of the EU's common energy diplomacy.This section is the main part of the paper.In this part,the author analyses the evolution and tactics of the EU's common energy diplomacy systematically from the perspectives of time and space.First of all,the author reorganizes the evolution of the EU's common energy diplomacy briefly.The author tries to summarize the whole evolution course as the following four phases:the use of preventive strategies to deal with the oil crisis,the construction of the integrated system basis of external energy relations,the signature of "European Energy Charter" and the start of the EU's common energy diplomacy,the public appearance of the EU's common energy policy and quick impetus of the energy diplomacy. Then the author discusses the promotion tactics and geo-strategic layout of EU's common energy diplomacy,and points out that the EU's common energy diplomacy has become a sub-level,diversified geo-strategic layout taking "Community of the pan-European energy security" as the core,Caspian Sea-Central Asia as the key,Russia as key partners,Africa and the Middle East as the expansion goal,dialogue and cooperation mechanism with great energy consumption countries as the components.And the author conducts a specific analysis of each framework and content of the layout.The third part deals with the constraints and future directions of the EU's common energy diplomacy.First of all,the author summarizes and analyses inherent limitations and contradictions of the EU's common energy diplomacy from the following three aspects:the EU's lack of leadership and authority in the EU common energy diplomacy,all kinds of the different interests and contradictions among the member states,and the intense energy geopolitical conflicts between the EU and Russia.Then considering a variety of favorable and unfavorable factors,the author makes a preliminary judgement about the basic trends and future directions of the EU's common energy diplomacy.It mainly includes:to promote the EU's common energy diplomacy system and the basic mechanism to improve furtherly,the energy game between Europe and Russia will continue to lead the overall situation of the EU's common energy diplomacy,the energy value diplomacy will create more opportunities and advantages for the EU's common energy diplomacy.Part four is concerned with the experience and enlightenment of the EU's common energy diplomacy.In this part,the author makes a high summary on the experience and enlightenment of the EU's common energy diplomacy from three aspects:to formulate scientific and effective energy security strategies,to develop the strategic partnership actively with energy-exporting countries and transit countries,to focus on strengthening the regional cooperation and international cooperation of the energy security,etc.As one of the world's major energy consumer entities,China faces the challenges similar to the EU in the energy security,which can draw on the EU's common energy diplomacy useful experience and successful practices to develop China's national energy diplomacy strategy,so that China's energy diplomacy can start in an orderly and effective way.