The geopolitical canvass on which China plots its strategy for energy security displays a ubiquitous presence of one country: the United States. Chinese energy security planners must reckon with America's ravenous consumption of imported oil, its strategic alliances with other heavy importers of oil in Asia, its overseas military operations in the heart of the world's leading oil producing region, its naval dominion over the world's oil transportation routes, and the global domination of U.S. oil companies or multinational oil companies heavily capitalized by American investment. This is the context in which China pursues its energy security, sometimes blandly described as 'conservation and diversification of supply', which masks the nation's real struggle to satisfy its rapidly growing energy needs without exposing its energy lifelines to external forces that may, intentionally or not, betray China's interests
