Recent months have seen a growth in the awareness among China’s urban residents of fine particulate matter suspended in the air.

China is not only a major strategic ally of Iran but it also relies on Iran for oil imports. In the face of US sanctions, China is likely to find a middle way involving some reduction of oil imports from Iran but not a complete cessation.

China's government has ambitious plans to raise the consumption of natural gas between 2011 and 2015. This demand will be met by growing domestic production of conventional and unconventional gas, as well as by imports. The key question is whether this greater availability of gas will lead to substitution of coal by gas, or to greater total energy consumption. Substitution on a significant scale will only occur if the government puts in place strong economic and administrative measures to constrain coal use.

China has introduced a resource tax or royalty based on the value of oil and gas rather than on the volume. A trial was launched last year in XInjiang which yielded a huge boost to local government revenue. This new tax system is now being extended to cover all oil and gas-producing regions in China.

The construction of transportation infrastructure is unable to keep pace with the continuing rapid growth of demand for coal in China. Huge traffic jams of coal trucks are the result. But there is no sign that China is able to take radical steps to reduce its dependence on coal.

The government of Beijing municipality is taking steps to limit road vehicle numbers, but the origins of the city’s traffic problems lie in decisions taken in the 1980s.

Recent news suggests that China may be one step closer to building an energy corridor the the Middle East, through deals in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The recent accidents at the Fukushima nuclear plan and on China's high speed rail network have shown the nature of the risks China faces as it pursues rapid growth of its energy sector, especially in the field of nuclear power

The state of energy relations between China and Russia is exemplified by the recent dispute over the price of oil delivered through the EPSO pipeline and by the continued failure to reach agreement over a gas proce.

China faces possibly the worst electricity shortages in decades. These result, in part, from long-standing inconsistencies in its energy pricing policies.