EU's Energy Policy To Central Asia And Its Implication For China

With the rich energy resource, Central Asia attracts plenty of attention of many big energy consuming countries against the background where the scarcity of energy has been much more serious. Compared with the Russia which regards Central Asia as its traditional sphere of influence, America which has extended its antenna into Central Asia and China which borders Central Asia, European Union did not focus on this region. In 2007, The EU and Central Asia: Strategy for a New Partnership was published and represented the new identification of Central Asia's role in EU's foreign policy, as the energy issue was stressed much more than before.How to ensure the security of energy supply has always been the focus of EU's foreign energy policy because of its high oversea energy dependence. However, there are two different opinions concerning the supply security, one of which is the 'market approach', supported by European Commission, arguing that the free, open and integrated energy market is the best method to ensure the security of energy supply and EU has to establish internal energy market and 'speak in one voice' in respect of foreign energy issues. This approach also emphasizes that the security of energy supply can only be fundamentally ensured through the integration of neighboring energy resources providers into the EU's internal energy market. Nevertheless, the other approach, favored by the national governments of member states, stresses that the energy trade is not a normal trade, as it involves the core of national interests. The security of energy supply can only be secured by stable political relationship and long-term bilateral energy supply contract. The EU's energy policy to Central Asia has always sought to keep a balance between the two approaches, while the balance is currently leaning to the latter.Similar to the situation of EU, China is also faced with the problem of how to ensure the security of energy supply. Central Asia has been the key point of China's 'diversified' oversea energy policy. Under the influence of realism, China took a full consideration of its interests of energy and national security in Central Asia and strengthened the bilateral relations with the countries in this region. Through the traditional bilateral energy cooperation, China has made great achievement in Central Asia's energy market. However, China's energy policy to Central Asia is not perfect and there is much space for China to be improved. Notwithstanding the marginal role of EU in Central Asia, its market method to ensure the security of energy supply is worthy being studied by China as such method includes the components of multilateral and regional cooperation and is helpful to maintain the stability and develop the energy resource in Central Asia.The relationship between China and EU will be potentially competing in terms of Central Asia's energy resource. Nevertheless, such a competing relation will be moderate if the investment can be ensured in energy exploration and development. One the one hand, China should consolidate the existed bilateral relation and continue taking the advantage of geopolitics to struggle for the dominant power to shape the exports of Central Asia's energy. One the other hand, China has to make a proactive preparation for the potential intensive competition by taking the consideration of the interests of other energy consuming countries and establishing multilateral energy coordination institution in the framework of Shanghai Cooperation Organization. China should push the integration of Central Asia forward to achieve win-win situation between energy resources countries and energy consuming countries.