Energy Crisis of China: Any Lesson for East Kalimantan?

Abstract

Initially, China widely known as energy-rich country, especially petroleum and natural gas, so dubbed ad “the New Saudi Arabia” in its golden period as producer and exporter country in this region. At that time, China’s oil and gas production was considered capable of meeting its domestic demand and fulfilling the consumption of its people so it was categorized as energy security condition. Unfortunately, the condition did not last long because China experienced drastic changes into energy crisis as the result of the decline of domestic fossil fuel production. These circumstances bring China into insecure condition due to high demand and depend of energy imports from abroad. The country is no longer able to provide fossil fuel for its industrial needs as well as the daily consumption of its huge population. As the implication, that shift encourages China to change its perception of its energy security and influence its external behaviour in the international relations. This article examines the problems of china’s energy situation post-cold war era by identifying the causes of the energy crisis to show how strategic and pivotal the energy issues for one nation and state. The importance of this article is that the energy crisis of China can be a lesson for other countries, including Indonesia that has East Kalimantan as one of the rich-energy province. East Kalimantan has also experienced an energy glory period of fossil fuel, than shifted to coal mines with various problems. The province is expected to take a lesson from China’s experience of the energy crisis.