Author: Kaiwen Lin 林凱文

     Oil has been a critical national resource since the early 20th century, when the British Empire began using oil to power its ships, and Parliament voted to acquire a majority stake in a Persian oil firm in order to ensure that it would be able to maintain access to oil for the Royal Navy.[1] With the development of the oil-powered airplane and tank, oil became even more important to strategic planning, and many nations created their own state-owned oil companies to ensure continued access to foreign oil. After the close of the Second World War, it was discovered that the Middle East had large reserves of easily-tapped oil. Not coincidentally, this was when the United States first established a foothold in the region, promising “U.S. military aid to any state in the region that came under attack from Soviet or Soviet-backed forces.”[2] The West’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil was revealed in 1973, when the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) cut off all petroleum exports to the United States and decreased its exports to other countries in response to American support for Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.[3] Defense correspondent Michael T. Klare writes that from that

     The Belt and Road Initiative, initially known as One Belt One Road, is China’s latest national development strategy, which aims to: Promote the connectivity of Asian, European and African continents and their adjacent seas, establish and strengthen partnerships among the countries along the Belt and Road, set up all-dimensional, multi-tiered and composite connectivity networks, and realize diversified, independent, balanced and sustainable development in these countries.[1] The initiative is composed of six sections: the Eurasian Land Bridge, the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor, the China-Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor, the China-Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor.      The “Cooperation Priorities” put forth in the 2015 “Visions and Actions” plan are: policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people-to-people bond.[2] The relationship between One Belt One Road and China’s energy policy first becomes apparent through these priorities. Under “facilities connectivity”, the plan states that “[w]e should promote cooperation in the connectivity of energy infrastructure, work in concert to ensure the security of oil and gas pipelines and other transport routes…”[3] In the next section titled “unimpeded trade”, the plan also encourages: “[C]ooperation in the exploration and development of coal, oil, gas, metal