Asia's Empty Tank

Kent E. Calder

From Foreign Affairs, March/April 1996

Article preview: first 500 of 4,804 words total.

Summary:  China has become an oil importer, Japan is a leading one, and South Korea is yet worse off. All are anxious about where the energy to fuel their powerhouse economies will come from. This newly significant insecurity exacerbates strains ranging from Chinese territorial disputes to the North Korean nuclear program to fears the region will draw too close to Iraq and Iran. Meanwhile, there are reserves down there, but the region needs enormous assistance in tapping them. The United States and Japan, as Pacific powers, should help assure energy for Asia.

Kent E. Calder is Director of the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. His most recent book is Pacific Defense: Arms, Energy, and America's Role in Asia.

ALL REVVED UP AND NO WAY TO GO

For nearly 15 years, since oil shock began to recede, energy has had remarkably low priority in global policy councils. The time has come for a reevaluation, and nowhere is one more urgent than in the Pacific. Major changes in East Asian energy patterns are creating both danger and opportunities for troubled trans-Pacific relations chronically oriented toward the past.

Asia's emerging energy problems cut subtly across the conventional boundary between economics and security. They have been further masked by the temporary collapse of demand in many markets, such as eastern Europe, since 1990. But they are no less perilous for their obscurity.

The coming decade--if buoyant economic growth continues in Asia, as seems likely--holds the potential for severe strains between Asian powers as regional oil markets tighten while contenders for supplies grow more diverse and competitive. China, Japan, the Koreas, and most Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members will be vigorously bidding for imports in energy markets that until recently were much simpler and more relaxed.ffi Changing supply routes for northeast Asian importers may spark geopolitical rivalries along the vulnerable sea-lanes that link Asia with the Middle East. Countries have already come to blows over their conflicting claims to offshore areas that may be rich in oil and gas.

Virtually all foreseeable futures pose unsettling dilemmas for Asia. Greater use of plentiful coal invites strip-mining, acid rain, and other environmental complications. Rapidly expanding nuclear power production raises safety concerns as well as the specter of nuclear proliferation. Continued reliance on oil means a tightening embrace of necessity between East Asia and the Middle East that, over the next generation, could fundamentally challenge the prevailing Western-dominated global order.

CHINA'S THIRST FOR OIL

At the root of Asia's energy security problem is China--a rising, frustrated, revisionist power in which ideological communism is yielding to nationalism--and its new status as an oil importer. A decade ago the People's Republic shipped nearly a quarter of its production abroad. But since the early 1990s China's trade balance in energy has sharply deteriorated, propelled by double-digit economic growth and the transition to a consumer economy. In November 1993 the country became a net importer of oil for the first time in more than a quarter-century, and the deficit has since soared to about 600,000 barrels a day.

The dependence on imports will likely deepen, in spite of sporadic efforts by Beijing to curb it. China's per capita energy consumption is still only 40 percent of the world average, and per capita oil consumption little more than one-sixth. Korea uses 10 times as much oil per capita, Japan 20 times, and the United States 30.

Over the coming decade three powerful engines will propel rising Chinese demand for oil: an automotive revolution, growing industrial production generally and energy-intensive manufacturing in particular, and expanding air travel. In 1994 China produced only 350,000 autos, many of them for state enterprises. But the aspiration among the Chinese middle class--expected to ...

End of preview: first 500 of 4,804 words total.