Energy cooperation problems in Northeast Asia: Unfolding the reality

It is a truism that Northeast Asian states could benefit very much if they were to cooperate in the energy security realm. However, to many, especially economists, their behaviour to this common sense solution has been bewildering: there has been simply no progress towards this end and it still remains a puzzle, even to many energy specialists. This article attempts to answer a simple question: Why do the Northeast Asian states, namely China, Japan, Korea, and Russia, not cooperate? For its analysis, the author of the article relies on content analysis of recently released official governmental long-term energy policy and strategy documents of these states, and notes that cooperation for energy security reasons at the regional level is conspicuously absent, which possibly implies a lack of desire and willingness to do so amongst themselves. The article, however, deliberately omits from its study Korea, simply because no such long-term energy policy exists today. It attributes the major cause to the strong propensity by energy specialists to interchangeably use the concepts of 'energy cooperation' and 'energy security' in their analysis. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]