China and Global Energy Governance: Integration or Confrontation?

China has been pursuing a risk averse counterweight energy strategy, cultivating strategic energy allies and diversifying its energy sources, generating a power shift of energy distribution from international oil companies to national oil companies. China's neomercantilism and NOCs suggest neither integration into the US-led international energy regime nor confrontation with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development-centered global energy governance. Instead, China is working toward creating a China-led alternative competitive regime. The prospect is therefore the emergence of a more fragmented and multilayered global energy governance.