Crude ‘Oil-Mercantilism’? Chinese Oil-Engagement in Kazakhstan

In 1991, the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) commenced the first Chinese National Oil Company (NOC) equity oil investment overseas when they invested in a UN-sponsored oil sands project in Canada. Since then, CNPC and the other Chinese NOCs (Sinopec & CNOOC) have steadily increased their equity oil investments in developing nations, sometimes with the assistance of various Chinese party and government organs. Viewed in the context of China’s burgeoning oil consumption and plateauing oil production, these investments have led to accusations by Western analysts and policymakers that China is engaging in “mercantilism” by “locking up” oil supplies from vulnerable developing nations to assuage their mounting energy-security woes.

Through examining Chinese oil-engagement in Kazakhstan, this paper will analyse whether accusations of “mercantilism” can adequately capture the complexities and dynamics that drive Chinese NOC investment in developing nations. This will be achieved by first surveying contemporary debates regarding Chinese oil-engagement abroad and then linking these debates to historical and contemporary conceptualisations of mercantilism. This will allow for a new multi-faceted definition of “oil mercantilist” behaviour, which will shift the label from a statement of ethical value to a statement of empirical fact that can be tested. This definition will then be used to examine the institutional contexts in China that support and counter contemporary accusations of oil mercantilism, and then to explore Chinese oil-engagement in Kazakhstan from 1996 to the present day. This paper will contribute to emerging literature that suggests Chinese oil investment and diplomacy cannot be simply understood through mercantilist perspectives. Analyses of Chinese oil engagement need to recognise the important influence that China’s institutional reforms have had on Chinese NOCs’ increasingly commercial approach to foreign investment, in addition to the unique host-country contexts China encounters through its oil investments.

赤裸的“石油重商主義”？ 中國在哈薩克斯坦的石油行為

1991國營的中國石油天然氣集團公司(CNPC)對由聯合國贊助的加拿大油砂項目的投資是中國國家石油公司(NOC) 的第一個海外石油股權投資。自此以來中石油和其它的中國國有石油公司（中石化和中海油）在發展中國家的石油股權投資就穩步提高，並不時得到中國各層黨和政府機關的協助。鑒於中國快速增長的石油消費及停滯不前的石油生產狀況，西方分析家和政策制定者因而指責中國正在施行“重商主義”, 即通過在弱勢的發展中國家“鎖定”石油供應來緩解其日益加劇的能源安全問題。

通過研究中國在哈薩克斯坦的石油行為，本文將分析“重商主義”的指責是否能充分涵蓋促使中國石油公司在發展中國家進行投資的複雜背景和動態因素。本文首先攷察了當前有關中國海外石油行為的辯論，然後將這些辯論與歷史上和當代的重商主義概念相比較。本文由此得以對“石油重商主義”行為進行新的多方位的定義，並將這一標籤從倫理價值聲明轉變為可以被測試的經驗事實表述。本文使用這一新定義來攷察目前支持和反對石油重商主義指責的中國機構背景，並探討中國從1996至今在哈克斯坦的石油行為。本文表明，中國石油投資和外交政策不能簡單地從重商主義的的視角來理解。對中國石油行為的分析需要認識到中國的機構改革對中國石油公司的海外投資日益註重商業手段的重要影響，並要考慮到中國在石油投資中遇到的獨特的宿主國家背景因素。

Translated from English by Xin Huang