IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/tefoso/v151y2020ics004016251832002x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Decoding China's natural gas development: A critical discourse analysis of the five-year plans

Author

Listed:
  • Zhou, Zhongbing
  • Qin, Quande

Abstract

Whether or not China's current policies are sufficient to speed up promoting the contribution of natural gas to the country's total energy supply is a critical question, particularly given China's present energy consumption structure and environmental condition. The nation's Five-Year Plans (FYPs) guide the society –ideologically and practically – in understanding the necessity, problems and future of China's natural gas development (NGD). Therefore, a critical discourse analysis (CDA) is conducted under Fairclough's CDA model. The model has three tiers: text, discursive practice and social practice. The textual analysis finds that the FYPs have considerable and critical fragmentation, incoherence, vagueness, and subject absence. The discursive practice analysis finds that the FYPs use effective strategies to ignore critical problems and are dominated by the technical perspective. The social practice analysis reveals that the textual features, discursive strategies and perspective dominance are possibly caused by the stakeholders’ varied interests and internal power struggles. This study concludes that China's natural gas penetration may not be as quick as expected, unless the institutional reform of NGD is first prioritized and more domestic natural gas suppliers are brought in to intensify market competition. Important recommendations for improving the FYPs are given at the conclusion.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhou, Zhongbing & Qin, Quande, 2020. "Decoding China's natural gas development: A critical discourse analysis of the five-year plans," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:151:y:2020:i:c:s004016251832002x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2019.119798
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004016251832002X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.techfore.2019.119798?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jaspal, Rusi & Nerlich, Brigitte & Lemańcyzk, Szczepan, 2014. "Fracking in the Polish press: Geopolitics and national identity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 253-261.
    2. Zeng, Bo & Li, Chuan, 2016. "Forecasting the natural gas demand in China using a self-adapting intelligent grey model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 810-825.
    3. Dong, Kangyin & Sun, Renjin & Wu, Jin & Hochman, Gal, 2018. "The growth and development of natural gas supply chains: The case of China and the US," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 64-71.
    4. Qin, Yue & Tong, Fan & Yang, Guang & Mauzerall, Denise L., 2018. "Challenges of using natural gas as a carbon mitigation option in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 457-462.
    5. Lin, Boqiang & Wang, Ting, 2012. "Forecasting natural gas supply in China: Production peak and import trends," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 225-233.
    6. Xunpeng, Shi & Variam, Hari Malamakkavu Padinjare & Tao, Jacqueline, 2017. "Global impact of uncertainties in China’s gas market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 382-394.
    7. Dong, Xiucheng & Pi, Guanglin & Ma, Zhengwei & Dong, Cong, 2017. "The reform of the natural gas industry in the PR of China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 582-593.
    8. Paltsev, Sergey & Zhang, Danwei, 2015. "Natural gas pricing reform in China: Getting closer to a market system?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 43-56.
    9. Aguilera, Roberto F. & Aguilera, Roberto, 2012. "World natural gas endowment as a bridge towards zero carbon emissions," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 579-586.
    10. Li, Junchen & Dong, Xiucheng & Shangguan, Jianxin & Hook, Mikael, 2011. "Forecasting the growth of China’s natural gas consumption," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 1380-1385.
    11. Attar, Arif & Genus, Audley, 2014. "Framing public engagement: A critical discourse analysis of GM Nation?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 241-250.
    12. Wang, Jianliang & Mohr, Steve & Feng, Lianyong & Liu, Huihui & Tverberg, Gail E., 2016. "Analysis of resource potential for China’s unconventional gas and forecast for its long-term production growth," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 389-401.
    13. Wang, Jianliang & Feng, Lianyong & Zhao, Lin & Snowden, Simon, 2013. "China's natural gas: Resources, production and its impacts," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 690-698.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Li, Fengyun & Li, Xingmei, 2022. "An empirical analysis on regional natural gas market of China from a spatial pattern and social network perspective," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 244(PA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chai, Jian & Wei, Zhaohao & Hu, Yi & Su, Siping & Zhang, Zhe George, 2019. "Is China's natural gas market globally connected?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 940-949.
    2. Zhang, Yi & Ji, Qiang & Fan, Ying, 2018. "The price and income elasticity of China's natural gas demand: A multi-sectoral perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 332-341.
    3. Zhou, Zhongbing & Qin, Quande, 2020. "Epistemological dominance and ignorance of the comparative advantages of China's shale gas: Evidence from international scientific journals," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    4. Xunpeng, Shi & Variam, Hari Malamakkavu Padinjare & Tao, Jacqueline, 2017. "Global impact of uncertainties in China’s gas market," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 382-394.
    5. Gao, Yanyan & Zheng, Jianghuai, 2022. "Clearing the air through pipes? An evaluation of the air pollution reduction effect of China's natural gas pipeline projects," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    6. Chen, Siyuan & Zhang, Qi & Wang, Ge & Zhu, Lijing & Li, Yan, 2018. "Investment strategy for underground gas storage facilities based on real option model considering gas market reform in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 132-142.
    7. Rioux, Bertrand & Galkin, Philipp & Murphy, Frederic & Feijoo, Felipe & Pierru, Axel & Malov, Artem & Li, Yan & Wu, Kang, 2019. "The economic impact of price controls on China's natural gas supply chain," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 394-410.
    8. Ding, Song, 2018. "A novel self-adapting intelligent grey model for forecasting China's natural-gas demand," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 393-407.
    9. Wang, Jianliang & Mohr, Steve & Feng, Lianyong & Liu, Huihui & Tverberg, Gail E., 2016. "Analysis of resource potential for China’s unconventional gas and forecast for its long-term production growth," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 389-401.
    10. Wang, Jianzhou & Jiang, Haiyan & Zhou, Qingping & Wu, Jie & Qin, Shanshan, 2016. "China’s natural gas production and consumption analysis based on the multicycle Hubbert model and rolling Grey model," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 1149-1167.
    11. Wei, Qi & Zhou, Peng & Shi, Xunpeng, 2023. "The congestion cost of pipeline networks under third-party access in China's natural gas market," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 284(C).
    12. Liu, Guixian & Dong, Xiucheng & Jiang, Qingzhe & Dong, Cong & Li, Jiaman, 2018. "Natural gas consumption of urban households in China and corresponding influencing factors," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 17-26.
    13. Boute, Anatole & Fang, Mandy Meng, 2022. "China's textbook approach to regulatory reform of the natural gas market," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    14. Shaikh, Faheemullah & Ji, Qiang & Shaikh, Pervez Hameed & Mirjat, Nayyar Hussain & Uqaili, Muhammad Aslam, 2017. "Forecasting China’s natural gas demand based on optimised nonlinear grey models," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 140(P1), pages 941-951.
    15. Yin, Yuwei & Lam, Jasmine Siu Lee, 2022. "Bottlenecks of LNG supply chain in energy transition: A case study of China using system dynamics simulation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 250(C).
    16. Sarvar Gurbanov, 2021. "Role of Natural Gas Consumption in the Reduction of CO 2 Emissions: Case of Azerbaijan," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-14, November.
    17. Shangfeng Han & Baosheng Zhang & Xiaoyang Sun & Song Han & Mikael Höök, 2017. "China’s Energy Transition in the Power and Transport Sectors from a Substitution Perspective," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-25, April.
    18. Li, Lanlan & Luo, Xuan & Zhou, Kaile & Xu, Tingting, 2018. "Evaluation of increasing block pricing for households' natural gas: A case study of Beijing, China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 162-172.
    19. Li, Wei & Lu, Can, 2019. "The multiple effectiveness of state natural gas consumption constraint policies for achieving sustainable development targets in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C), pages 685-698.
    20. Beyca, Omer Faruk & Ervural, Beyzanur Cayir & Tatoglu, Ekrem & Ozuyar, Pinar Gokcin & Zaim, Selim, 2019. "Using machine learning tools for forecasting natural gas consumption in the province of Istanbul," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 937-949.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:151:y:2020:i:c:s004016251832002x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00401625 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.