China and the Energy Equation in Asia : The Determinants of Policy Choice

Why does China act as it does in its pursuit of energy security?

Are 'resource wars' inevitable? Going beyond traditional analysis that focus on China as a regional and global threat, Jean Garrison sheds new light on the roots of the country's energy policy and the constraints that it faces.

Garrison eschews the zero-sum approaches that underlie much conceptualization of the subject, arguing that they are in large part based on the erroneous notion that China is a unitary actor with a coherent energy strategy.

Her attention to the competing developmental and environmental priorities at play in China's domestic politics is a critical contribution to the global energy-security debate.

Contradicting conventional wisdom, Garrison sheds new light on the roots of China's energy policy and the constraints that it faces.