Energy Co-operation in North East Asia: Lessons from the European Experience

The three major oil importing countries of Northeast Asia—China, Japan and South Korea—are concerned about future security of energy supplies to fuel their dynamic economic activity. Currently all three countries are highly dependent on imports of oil from the Middle East, a region with inherent political instability. Russia’s rich reserves of oil and gas in Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East offer an obvious alternative. Given the geographical proximity of Russia and its desire to increase its energy exports to Northeast Asia, there is huge potential for cooperation. So far there has been no real intra-regional cooperation and no common external policy towards Russia. Despite obvious differences between Europe and North East Asia, the European model of energy cooperation, developed over the past 50 years, offers some useful lessons.