The Politics of China's Energy Policy Change 1996-2015

In general, the objectives of a country's energy policy fall into several categories, including security of supply, efficiency, equity, financial, and macro-economic (Andrews-Speed 2004, p.42). Over the last decade, the dramatic shift of the relative priority of China's national energy policy objectives in its recent four Five-Year Plans (1996-2015) has captured the world's attention. Energy supply security, with a focus on oil supply security that had been the top priority of China's energy policy in the 9th and 10th Five-Year Plans (FYPs) (1996-2005), was suddenly replaced by energy efficiency targets, especially industrial energy intensity targets, as the new top priority of China's energy policy in the 11th and 12th Five-Year Programmes (also FYPs hereafter) (2006- 2015). 1 As the world's second largest economy, the second largest energy producer and consumer today, China's energy policy and its change have a profound impact on the global economy and environment issues. To study the mechanism of China's energy policymaking and the underlying forces that led to the policy change over the past two decades is very important for us to understand the country's transitional political economy and its implications for the world.