Energy Africa In International Competition And The China-africa Energy Cooperation

Energy is an important resource that related to the development of national economy and national security. With the global growing for energy thirst, energy is not only an important part of global economic trade and competition, but also becomes the focus of the political game in the major powers, it is the important factors of evolution of global geopolitical pattern. The world's energy center has increasingly become the focus of the world's major powers struggle. Comprehensive use of political, economic, diplomatic, and military and other means to protect the country's energy security has become an inevitable strategic choice of countries around the world. Africa that the oil and gas reserves and production are rich is having considerable allure to the main consumer countries. In recent years, the major powers have a beachhead in Africa, the competition for African oil and gas resources has reached a fevered pitch. In this battle, US-led Western countries occupy the dominant position, China and other developing countries are catching up.Africa is one of the world's eight major oil producing areas, however, when nature gives them the wealth, it doesn't give them peace and tranquility. As the great attraction of energy, the region has been hot spots various interest groups and multinational companies scramble and contest. Therefore,when we study energy issues in the region, not only concerned about its rich energy reserves, and also see the contest of international political forces behind them, and see the interaction of energy and geopolitical pattern. U.S., EU, Japan, Russia and India are the world's major strategic forces, but their energy situation and energy interests are different. These countries have developed a different energy strategy for Africa according to their actual situation and state interests, they use political, economic, diplomatic, military and other means in order to occupy a favorable position in the fierce competition. Thus many African oil-producing countries are pushed to the world political and economic arena, the competition around Oil and gas resources of the region become increasingly fiercer. So this will directly affect the adjustment of the international energy pattern and the international and political relations of energy producing and consuming countries, it has become a major issue the domestic and foreign research institutions and scholars concern. China as the world's largest developing country, its distribution of energy resources is uneven, to achieve the goal of building a moderately prosperous society, it must effectively address the issue of energy constraints on China's economic development, and actively participate in international competition and cooperation of energy. China-Africa traditional friendly relations is so long that it is imperative to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the energy field in the context of stability in political relations and economic relations gradually in-depth. In the process to implement the strategy of diversified sources of energy imports, China has been Africa as an important source area into the strategic considerations even as an important pillar of the China's oil diplomacy strategy. Africa's oil and Gas resources is rich and the potential to exploit is great, this is a rare opportunity for both China and Africa, on the one hand ,it can help African countries turn resources into development advantages, on the other hand ,it also can alleviate the energy shortage in China. With the increasingly close contacts between China and Africa, the contents of cooperation from the previous single oil trade extend to the field of oil exploration and development, China-Africa energy cooperation show good momentum. At the same time, n is also facing some serious challenges. in the process of China-Africa energy cooperation, China should play its comparative advantage to Western countries, and actively engaged in establishing a fair and rational international political and economic new order to achieve equality and mutually beneficial "win-win" goal with the African countries. With the convening of China-Africa Cooperation Forum Beijing Summit, China and Africa will cooperate in a larger, broader and higher level. China-Africa cooperation in the energy field will be more stable and longer.This article starts with carding the evolution of the international energy pattern, on the of analyzing the situation and the status and role in the international energy pattern of Africa energy, and to further explore energy strategy for Africa of the major powers in today's world such as United States, European Union, Japan, Russia and India. China as the world's second largest after the US consumer adhere to combine with the "going out" and "bringing in" , and has been Africa as one of important energy sources in order to ensure national energy security. The last chapter on the basis of studying China's current energy security situation and energy strategy, further discuses the status quo of China-Africa energy cooperation, opportunities and challenges facing, the impact of African socio-economic development and China-Africa traditional friendly relationon on China-Africa energy cooperation and how to strengthen China-Africa in new century.Although Africa's exploration and development of oil and gas resources can not replace the Middle East's position in the international energy market, and not fundamentally break the distribution pattern of the world's oil resources, it will affect the trend of international oil route with the growing African oil reserves. This will not only bring unprecedented social and economic development opportunities to the 21st century, but also to change the distribution pattern of the world's oil market to a considerable extent.