Campion The Geopolitics of Red Oil

Constructing the China threat through energy security
Erscheinungsjahr 2015
ISBN: 978-1-317-35428-4
Verlag: CRC Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 206 Seiten

Reihe: Routledge Contemporary China Series

Energy security has emerged as one of the most important contemporary geopolitical issues. Access to reliable, cheap energy has become essential to the functioning of modern economies but the uneven distribution of energy supplies has led to significant Western vulnerability. This vulnerability was perhaps most acutely demonstrated by the 1973 Oil Crisis when OPEC was able to leverage its oil wealth into otherwise unattainable political clout over the West. While oil supply security is as vital to US national security in 2015 as it was in 1973, concerns and perceptions surrounding security of supply no longer tend to surround the producer-states of OPEC, but instead they stem from the growing demand of competing importer states – most notably China. As China’s unprecedented growth continues, critics argue that traditional sources of energy supplies are becoming strained as they struggle to meet the growing demand.

This book fills an important gap in the emerging corpus of research on energy security by offering fresh insights into the rise of China as a global superpower and ways in which its rise is perceived to threaten western energy security. The book makes a unique contribution by questioning how recent US foreign policy has sought to position China as an antagonist to western energy interests and how this image has become the dominant understanding of China by the West. Rather than treating these issues as given, which orthodox approaches tend to do, this book analyses the discursive relationship between US identity, foreign policy and energy security, which leads to a more nuanced and critical understanding of perceptions of China’s potential threat to western energy security.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Campion, Andrew

Campion, Andrew Stephen

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1 Introduction 2 The China Threat Discourse 3 The Energy Security Discourse 4 The CNOOC/Unocal Affair 5 Conclusions

Über Autor(innen)

School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, UK.