There are many promising renewable energy (RE) technologies that could help increase the contribution of RE in energy supply but which are not yet commercially available. The development rate of new RE technologies depends on many factors, such as Research and Development (R&D) efforts and policies. This study focuses on comparing China’s efforts regarding the development of new RE technologies (e.g., wave and tidal, binary geothermal power, floating solar, micro hydro, osmotic energy, floating offshore wind and vertical axis wind turbines) with those of the European Union (EU). For this purpose, we collected data from publications and databases and analysed several indicators: e.g., the development of renewable electricity generation and capacity, demonstration projects, investments in R&D and patent applications. The results show that China has become a big player globally for mainstream renewable electricity (hydropower, wind and solar PV). This development is due to China’s industrial policy and prioritization of effectiveness over cost efficiency. The main developments in China occurred in the 2010s, while the EU was a frontrunner in the 2000s. For the newer or less mainstream technologies, the application in China is still low, compared to the EU, except for floating solar, where China is a lead player. Regarding patent applications, China has shown a higher application amount compared to the EU since 2006. However, only a small share of China’s patents are valid internationally. We conclude that China has emerged as a big player in mainstream renewable energy technologies over the last decade. In regard to new renewable energy technologies, China is predominantly involved in solar energy and, in comparison to the EU, less in other new technologies (e.g., binary geothermal systems and ocean energy).

China’s transition to an urban-industrial society relies predominantly on its abundant domestic coal supplies and, secondly, on an increase in oil and gas imports. For this reason, China’s strategic investments in the oil and gas industries of resource-rich, energy-exporting countries have vastly increased. Given the high levels of import-dependency, the domestic power-wealth structures in China rely on uninterrupted supplies from beyond state borders. In their search for supply security, major import-dependent actors have two options. One is to reduce dependency by, for instance, higher energy efficiency. Another option is to increase the security of energy imports. This requires improving supply security from resource-rich oil- and gas-exporting countries and regions. The significant growth in the overseas assets and activities of China’s state-led National Oil Companies (nocs) are crucial to China’s energy supply security. In this study we argue that the transnational activities of Chinese nocs are part of the country’s so-called ‘statist’, state-led economic globalization, in the course of which some developing economies have become global political powers. In this paper we outline the approach and the conceptual foundations to understand geopolitical economy of energy security in China based on the following section: [1] the unit of analysis in the Political Economy of Energy. [2] Sequential industrialization and its global impacts, [3] Fossil fuel security and resource-scarcity, [4] China’s power structure, state class, and industrialization, [5] Industrialization, lateral pressure, the geopolitical economy and China’s external relations [6] National oil companies: changing the game.

During the last decade, China’s diplomatic, economic, security and multilateral relations with Resource-Rich Countries (rrcs) in general, and with Central Asia and the Caspian Region (cacr) in particular, created a regional web of complementarity connecting states and societies. This trend reflects a dimension of the “statist globalization” of the Chinese economy. Chinese National Oil Companies (cnocs) are powerful actors within this emerging network. This comes as no surprise, as China’s domestic power-wealth structure relies on uninterrupted foreign (energy) supplies. The main aim of this paper will be to present a geopolitical economic reflection on China’s post-Cold War energy relations with the rrcs of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. Our theoretical framework, which stems from critical geopolitics, tries to conceptualize the geopolitical economic policy tools used by China’s ruling class in rrcs in general and the two cases in particular.

"Introduction" published on 08 Oct 2014 by Brill.

Although energy supply security is an important long-term goal of the eu, member states are in control over external supplies and their domestic energy mix, and an overarching institutional structure is lacking. In this paper, we focus on the availability of oil and gas and the risks of supply disruptions for the eu. The last two decades have been marked by a decrease in fossil fuel production and increasing import dependence. Proven oil and gas reserves in the eu are very limited. Especially in the case of oil the outlook of both global and own eu reserves looks bleak. At the same time, global trends show an increasing demand for energy in the coming decades, concentrated mainly in developing countries, specifically in China. The Persian Gulf area and the Caspian Sea region hold some of the world’s largest oil and gas reserves, and these will make them increasingly significant in global markets. These factors create a setting for the eu of demand- and supply-induced and structural scarcity. The persistence of Arab patrimonial rentier states and societies are a domestic and geopolitical source of instability. These states’ Sovereign Wealth Funds are used by ruling elites to divert assets from socioeconomic development towards individual profit. Emerging Asian economies involved in the me and the cea, especially China, will influence the regions’ future geopolitical and geo-economic reality. China relies on resources for domestic development and the resource-rich Middle Eastern countries have long been a destination from which to acquire them.

There are many shared historical experiences and similarities between Iran and China. Both are legacies of the long-lasting empires and civilisations in West and East Asia, respectively. Like other great Asian empires, Iran and China were confronted with the expansion of the European imperial powers in the early-nineteenth century which ultimately led to the dislocation of these ancient empires. Both countries had resisted pressures towards peripheralization in the global economy by the creation of nationalist popular revolutions and by building modern nation states and identities in the first half of the twentieth century, despite different political systems, cultures, and external relations. Both Iran and China have been trying to escape from the external pressures and internal socio-economic backwardness by the modernization of their states, societies, and economies via a state-led catch-up development strategy. These efforts led to the rise of China in the late-20th century and the emergence of post-Islamic revolutionary Iran 1978/79 as a ‘contender state' to the hegemony of the United States (US) in West Asia. This development raises two key questions: why did China succeed in rising as an industrialised regional and global power, and has Iran’s development strategy failed so far? I argue that the main reason for post-revolutionary Iran failure to become the regional hegemon comes from two interconnected issues: (i) the failure of its economic development strategy, which was mainly caused by (ii) the ‘offensive' external involvement in its own region before a successful catch-up process. Iran's catch-up development strategy, which is the main material basis for the country's rise, was hampered after the revolution by its ‘offensive, revolutionary and military oriented foreign policy'. This strategy blocked Iran from access to capital, information and technology concentrated in the core area of the global economy dominated by the US. Unlike Iran, China's successful catch-up industrialisation was driven, in part, through rapprochement and consensus between Chinese leaders and the US and its allies in 1970s. This strategy led China to distance itself from Mao's revolutionary offensive foreign relations and replace it with ‘defensive’ and peaceful foreign relations in the era of its catch-up industrialisation (1980-2000s).