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Asia’s Rising Energy and Resource Nationalism: Conclusions and Implications for the United States
- National Bureau of Asian Research
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67 the national bureau of asian research nbr special report #31 | september 2011 Asia’s Rising Energy and Resource Nationalism: Conclusions and Implications for the United States Mikkal E. Herberg MIKKAL E. HERBERG is a Senior Lecturer in the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California–San Diego, and Research Director on Asian energy security at the National Bureau of Asian Research. He can be reached at . [3.80.129.195] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 18:21 GMT) 69 CONCLUSION u HERBERG T he conference discussion, essays, and comparative analysis of this year’s annual Energy Security Conference bring into sharp relief the range of new political and diplomatic challenges rippling outward from energy and resource insecurity in Asia. Put simply, the atmosphere of zero-sum competition between countries over access to and control of resources, what can be called “energy nationalism,” is clearly having an increasingly toxic and destabilizing impact on regional geopolitics and on the most important bilateral strategic relationships that will determine Asia’s future. Although energy nationalism is declining among large Western economies, the trend in Asia toward a national scramble to control energy resources and transportation routes is adding fuel to existing strategic rivalries in a region that is already in the midst of a profound and uncertain transition: adjusting to the economic and political rise of China. Although, as Llewelyn Hughes points out, it is not possible to lock up supplies in truly global resource markets, the attempt to do so by key powers in Asia is nevertheless adding to tensions. For the United States, a stable and prosperous Asia is a vital strategic interest as the world’s economic and political power gradually shifts eastward. Hence, Asia’s increasingly dysfunctional atmosphere caused by energy and resource insecurities creates new challenges for U.S. diplomacy. Growing resource competition among Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, and New Delhi to promote their own national oil companies (NOC) and gain control over foreign oil and gas supplies perversely undermines each government’s confidence in fair access to future supplies and thereby reinforces a spiral of strategic distrust. This fear over denied future access also resonates strongly in Washington. Asia’s toxic competitive atmosphere is also encroaching on the maritime realm as the huge rise in supplies moving through the South China Sea and Indian Ocean via oil and gas tankers makes control over the energy sea lines of communication another important driver of a potential naval arms race. State support for Asian NOCs, most importantly Chinese NOCs, is beginning to significantly affect the competitiveness of large, U.S.-based oil companies. These state-led measures are, in effect, industrial policies that are undermining U.S. oil companies’ long-term strength. The conference discussion also suggested that the escalation of Sino-Japanese geopolitical tensions over access to China’s rare earth exports further demonstrates how resource conflicts can become serious strategic tensions that simply add to strategic suspicion and distrust. Therefore, the key challenge for the United States is to find ways to reshape Asia’s deeply nationalistic and competitive approaches to energy and resource security into more cooperative and collaborative approaches to what are, in reality, shared challenges. Regional cooperation and competitive markets must replace national competition and politicized markets. The major oil consumers and importers in the region have common, fundamental interests in stable global markets, secure and free access to supplies, reasonable prices, and reliable transport routes. The region therefore must work together on building trust, managing the impulse toward statist competition, promoting new supplies, developing new regional infrastructure, and ensuring open sea lanes for energy transport. Cooperation on these issues will require stronger leadership and a reordering of strategic priorities across the region, especially in Washington and Beijing. One approach would involve creating a new Asian energy forum that would bring together key regional energy importers and strategic powers in a confidence-building process focused on collaborative regional solutions to energy security concerns. Such a forum should include the large importing countries—China, 70 NBR SPECIAL REPORT u SEPTEMBER 2011 Japan, South Korea, India, and the United States—as well as Russia, a key regional supplier. A similar grouping was convened in 2007 and led by the United States and China, but it lost momentum with the change in U.S. administration. It is unrealistic to expect that this approach will quickly result in major new investments or transport infrastructure. Nevertheless, the region needs a lengthy period of trust...