Study on China＇s Economic Vulnerability to Energy Import Using Decomposition Method

Vulnerability means the degree to which that a system is susceptible to suffer damage. This paper focuses on the economic vulnerability to risk of energy import by employing ratio of net energy import to GDP as indicator, and decomposes the vulnerability change into effects of energy import, structure and intensity in order to find out key factors that influence economic security to energy import. Decomposition analysis on China indicates that effect of rising energy import takes more than 90 percent of total vulnerability change during the last 10 years, along with insignificant effect of structural change and intensity decline. International analysis on cross- section data of net energy importers also presents the positive relationship between external energy dependence and economic vulnerability. However, results of America show that long-term effect of energy intensity is much larger than China from 1954 to 2007, which is 70.8% of its total vulnerability change. Experience from developed countries confirms the necessary and validity of improving energy efficiency on depressing economic vulnerability to energy import, which provides lessons for the energy development of China.