Northeast Asia’s Energy Transition–Challenges for a Rules-Based Security and Economic Order

Would the rise and political convergence of a dominant gas supplier (Russia) and an outsized consumer (the People's Republic of China) prohibit or facilitate the rise of multilateral energy governance in Northeast Asia? We revisit conventional views on challenges to interstate cooperation on managing energy demand and related infrastructure provision among Japan, South Korea (ROK), and the People's Republic of China. Through a “geoeconomic” analysis that tracks the interplay between national energy transition and the securitization of energy policies, we suggest that Northeast Asia energy interdependence relations are in the process of being drawn into a Eurasian Arctic and heartland framework that mediates great power competition across energy, financial, and diplomatic domains. Against these pressures, Japan, the European Union and the U.S. would need to reconceptualize the geographical basis of a regional liberal institutional order as defined in this book.