"Provincializing Global Oil Shocks: Japanese Initiatives in the Internationalization of China’s Energy Industries, 1972-1985"

This manuscript investigates the role Japan—both the business and political establishment—played in the internationalization of China’s energy sector at the commencement of China's transition to a market economy. Utilizing newly declassified diplomatic documents in Japan, South Korea, and the United States as well as published primary sources from China, this paper places Sino-Japanese entanglement in the energy sector in the context of oil crises and the geopolitical reconfiguration of the late Cold War, arguing that Japan’s failed energy diplomacy with the Soviet Union and the United States was instrumental in boosting its interest in China’s energy build-up. This paper also evaluates the effectiveness of Japanese participation in China’s energy development during the late Cold War. It points out that Japanese officials and industrialists exerted a more profound influence on China’s decision to prioritize the development of fossil energy compared to their American counterparts. Japanese initiatives also acted as intermediaries for China’s energy cooperation with other countries, including the United States and South Korea, even before their diplomatic normalization with China. By highlighting the essential role Japanese initiatives played in internationalizing Chinese energy industries, this paper shows that China’s transition to a market economy from the 1970s was contingent on developments in the global Cold War and multilateral coordination from external participants.