THE DRAGON HAS NO TEETH:

By replacing solid fuel ovens and small, old and inefficient coal-based building and district heating systems, gas has helped cut urban air pollution.

Pollution has fallen in every one of the four megacities and 28 provincial capitals, based on measurements of the volume of small particles sampled from the air, in most cases by between 15% and 40% since 2006.

The expansion of the gas network is not the only reason for falling pollution; polluting industries have been relocated away from city centers and coal combustion boilers have been upgraded to more efficient models.

But the expansion of the gas distribution system has made a significant contribution to cleaner air in areas that do not depend on heavy energy-intensive industries such as iron, steel, cement and chemicals.

The principal drawback is that rising gas consumption has far outstripped the country's ability to raise domestic gas production.

In 2006, China was essentially self-sufficient in gas, with production and consumption both running at around 58 billion cubic meters per year.

By 2018, production had increased to 160 billion cubic meters, but consumption had surged to 280 billion cubic meters, leaving the country relying on imports for more than 40% of its needs.

China sourced roughly a third of its imported gas in the form of LNG from Australia, which is closely aligned with the United States, the country's major strategic competitor.

Slightly more gas was sourced in total by pipeline from Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia, according to BP ("Statistical Review of World Energy", 2020).

The rest is sourced from a range of smaller suppliers, either as LNG (Qatar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Russia) or pipeline gas (Myanmar and Russia).

The relatively concentrated sources of China's gas imports, and increasing importance of gas to the country's energy system, is a growing threat to national security.

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