China as a Challenge to the Security of European Energy Supplies

In the future, Asia’s growth economies in particular will, in the course of their economic development, have an enormous influence on the increase of global energy demands. The People’s Republic of China, globally speaking, is already an important energy consumer, as it consumes over two-fifths of the world’s coal and almost a tenth of the world’s petroleum. Although this means that Chinese energy demands are already assuming a significant scale, the energy demand per head remains at only around 30 percent of the average for OECD states.