Consumer politics: resource mercantilism

Chapter 3 examines how the three resource-poor and import-dependent consumers in the Asia-Pacific (China, Japan and Korea) have responded to the global boom. It reviews the emerging ‘resource crisis’ facing these economies and identifies how these governments have all adopted mercantilist resource security strategies. These are strategies where governments seek to have national firms (either private or state-owned) take control of mining and energy projects abroad in order to preferentially supply home markets. Resource mercantilism is driven by both economic security concerns (including political imperatives to protect important economic constituencies domestically) as well as national security issues (due to geopolitical rivalries causing a lack of confidence in international resource markets). However, resource mercantilism is an inherently zero-sum security strategy, and a ‘race for resources’ has developed between these governments as they compete to lock-up foreign supplies. This race has further fuelled inter-governmental conflict in the Asia-Pacific, and seen resources become linked with several emerging geopolitical tensions.