State-Managed Marketization: China's Approach to Oil Security

Abstract

While China's oil security problem has disconcerted the Chinese government, it has also drawn world attention. What are China's oil security perceptions? How and why has China taken a state-managed marketization approach (SMMA) to oil security? And in what sense is China's SMMA a divergence from international practice? These are the questions I want to explore. I do it through the prisms of energy security perceptions, domestic policies, institutional reform, and oil diplomacy. I argue that the SMMA has primarily resulted from the interactions between the Chinese government and the national oil companies (NOCs), the overriding energy policy maker and enforcer. Using case studies, I construct a "role compatibility" model to decipher their interactions. While globalization has brought about some convergent effects on China's approach, it has engendered some divergences from international practices. China's approach implies that it is hard for it to accept the neoliberalistsb