I．Background

With the development of the globalization process, energy security has become a key factor not only for the long-term and stable economic growth of a country or a region, but also for the stability of the world economy and the global political situation. Meanwhile, the denotation of energy security has kept extending, and at present covers those aspects such as energy supply, energy transportation, energy exploration, energy exploitation and utilization, the stability of energy price, and environment protection, etc..

Recently, the international petroleum price has been fluctuating at a high range, which became the key issue affecting international energy security. The high petroleum price is a big menace to the world economy, for it has triggered off the worldwide inflation, undermined the sustainable economic development of the emerging countries, and resulted in big loss in those energy consumption countries. In fact, the high petroleum price will also expedite the development and application of alternative energy, which will undoubtedly bring challenges to the long-term benefits of the petroleum exporting countries.

Countries all over the world and related international organizations are showing great concern for the increasingly serious problem of energy security. To strengthen energy cooperation and maintain energy security has become a common understanding of the international society and an urgent task in face of all countries.

II．The Significance of ASEM’s Energy Cooperation

ASEM members, especially EU members and East Asia countries, are among the most important consumers of traditional energy such as petroleum, whose overall consumption accounts for about two third of the world’s total consumption. Moreover, the ASEM developing members, especially China and India, will be the main contributors for the new increment of the world’s energy consumption in the next two decades. Consequently, to carry out closer energy cooperation will not only be conductive to guarantee stable energy supply and realize sustainable economic development for ASEM members, but also make positive contribution to promote the global energy security.

Firstly, as the main energy consumption area in the world, ASEM’s energy cooperation will help maintain the normal order of international energy market and guarantee safe and smooth international energy supply, thus forming a long-term stable structure of energy production, transportation and consumption. 

Secondly, energy cooperation among ASEM members will enhance energy consumer-producer dialogue and policy coordination, and restrain excessive speculation, thus promoting long-term supply-demand equilibrium and price stability of energy.

Thirdly, ASEM members are strongly complementary in the development and utilization of clean energy, alternative energy and new energy, for developed members have advantages in technology and capital, while developing members have strong market demand for these technologies. Therefore, the cooperation among ASEM members in these fields has a broad prospect.

It should be emphasized that ASEM’s energy cooperation is also of great significance to the business/private sector of the region. First of all, energy cooperation will help improve microeconomic environment of the region, which is extremely important to enterprise operation. Furthermore, as terminal consumers of energy, the enterprises of the ASEM region will benefit from the stability of energy supply and price, which can help them lower transaction cost and increase management efficiency. Obviously, energy cooperation of ASEM would also benefit the development of those enterprises engaged in new energy exploitation, energy saving and environment protection. Consequently, it is the common desire and eager hope of the business/private sector that the governments of ASEM members could implement more effective measures to strengthen energy cooperation in the ASEM region.

All in all, it is of great significance for ASEM to enhance energy cooperation. The application of effective energy cooperation measures would make outstanding contribution to the mutual benefit and common prosperity of ASEM members. 

III. China’s Energy Policies

As one of the largest energy producers and consumers not only in ASEM but also in the world, China strives for high scientific and technological content, low resource consumption, minimum of environmental pollution, good economic returns, and guaranteed safety in energy development. The basic themes of China's energy strategy are giving priority to thrift, relying on domestic resources, encouraging diverse patterns of development, relying on science and technology, protecting the environment, and increasing international cooperation for mutual benefit. It strives to build a stable, economical, clean and safe energy supply system, so as to support the sustained economic and social development with sustained energy development.

With accelerating economic globalization, China has forged increasingly closer ties with the outside world in the field of energy. China's development of energy has not only satisfied its own needs for economic and social progress, but also brought opportunities and tremendous space for development to the rest of the world.

China is also an active participant in international energy cooperation. In multilateral cooperation, China is a member of the energy working group of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus China, Japan and ROK (10+3) Energy Cooperation, International Energy Forum, World Energy Conference, and Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate. It is an observer of the Energy Charter, and maintains close relations with such international organizations as the World Energy Agency and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Regarding bilateral cooperation, China has established a mechanism for dialogue and cooperation in the field of energy with a number of energy consuming and producing countries, such as the US, Japan and Russia, and the European Union. It has intensified dialogue and cooperation regarding energy exploration, utilization, technology and environmental protection, as well as renewable energy and new energy resources, and has had extensive dialogues and exchanges with them in such aspects as energy policy and information data. Therefore, in the field of energy cooperation of ASEM, China not only shoulder obligations, but also has the capacity to play an active and constructive role.

IV. Recommendations for Strengthening ASEM’s Energy Cooperation

The core goal of ASEM’s energy cooperation is to provide comprehensive energy support to the sound economic and social development of the ASEM region, and try to alleviate the environmental impact from the energy supply and utilization. To realize this goal, it is suggested that ASEM member could take the following measures:

To initiate and implement sustainable energy strategy, i.e. to realize reasonable equilibrium among those aims including energy supply security, fulfillment of social demand, competitive energy service and environment protection, and to provide energy service on the bases of acceptable cost, safe and environment-favorable patterns;

To strengthen coordination and cooperation in the area of strategic energy representing by petroleum, and to promote dialogue and communication between energy exporting countries and consumer countries, aiming to maintain rational international energy price and restrain high petroleum price; At the same time, to establish the emergency mechanism and risk handling plan of energy in the ASEM region, in order to fulfill the basic energy need of the members;

To make more efforts on the development and utilization of renewable energy, such as nuclear power, wind power, hydro power and biomass power, to provide stronger financial support to the R&D of clean energy, and manage to improve the energy utilization efficiency; Meanwhile, to carry out economic and technical cooperation in the up-mentioned areas, especially the technical and financial support to the developing members of ASEM; 

To promote the development of energy-saving industries and broaden the scope of work on energy efficiency to more energy intensive sectors, to attach great importance to the development of new technologies of energy efficiency, and to enhance cooperation with related international organizations of energy standard, certification and accreditation;

To facilitate enterprises’ investment on energy projects in the ASEM region, especially financing on energy infrastructure and investment on energy efficiency and renewable energy;

To enhance the cooperation among enterprises of ASEM’s developed and developing members in the field of development, utilization and transfer of environment protection and energy technology, as well as professional technical personnel training, so that their complementarities in these fields could be given full play;

To encourage and support the business/private sector to participate in the energy cooperation of ASEM, to establish effective dialogue mechanism between the authorities and the business/private sector, and to invite representatives of Asia-Europe Business Forum to attend ASEM’s official meetings related to energy cooperation.