Page 365 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

338 Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

boasts of being the world’s fourth largest merchant fleet, contributes 6.8% to
global tonnage (UNCTAD, 2005). However, in the aftermath of 9/11, the
security landscape of international trade and maritime transport changed
significantly. The challenges facing global maritime security are increasingly
of a nontraditional nature, such as terrorist acts against shipping, trafficking
in weapons of mass destruction, armed pirate robbery, as well as smuggling
of people and arms. Pirates and Islamist terrorist groups have long operated
in those water areas, including the Arabian Sea, the South China Sea, and in
waters off the coast of western Africa. Since 2008, the Chinese government
has dispatched warships to the waters off Somalia to protect Chinese vessels
and crews from pirate attacks. The Chinese fleet would join warships from
the United States, Denmark, Italy, Russia, and other countries in patrolling
theGulfofAden, whichleadstothe Suez Canal. Currently this is the
quickest route from Asia to Europe and the Americas. This is a remarkable
foreign policy change from a home-based passive defense to an offshore-
based “preventive defense,” which is directly linked and coordinated with
the Western developed nations for their collective energy security. The
aftermath of the 2011 conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa will be
far more significant.
From an internal perspective, energy security has become the essential
premise for China to achieve its national goal of quadrupling its GDP in 2020.
There is a genuine consensus among Chinese leaders and scholars that energy
has become a key strategic issue for China’s economic development, social
stability, and national security and that the realization of China’s key national
5
interests depends highly on the access to sufficient energy resources (Liu,
2006; Zhang, 2006). China’s “market economy” had locked itself in a “tiger-
riding dilemma,” i.e., any slowdown in economic growth would put the
country in a risky situation, leading to social unrest and political illegitimacy
(Li and Clark, 2009). China’s government fears that domestic energy shortage
and rising energy cost could undermine the country’s economic growth and
thus seriously jeopardize job creation (Lo, 2011). Beijing increasingly stakes
its political legitimacy on economic performance and rising standards of living
for its people. Consequently, the threat of economic stagnation due to energy
shortage represents real risks of social instability, which could in turn threaten
the continued political authority of the state and the Communist Party. Energy
security, hence economic stability, and sustainable development are basic
strategic political concerns for the leadership.
In fact, some scholars of energy politics point out that state-led pursuit
of energy supplies is often seen as the source of international conflicts

5. China’s national interests are defined by the government as including sustained economic
growth, the prevention of Taiwanese independence, China’s return to a global power status, and
the continuous leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Today, energy security is defined as
a core part of China’s national interests.