THE 33rd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Meeting, to be held in Shenzhen, China, on Nov. 18 and 19, 2026, will bring together leaders of the APEC’s 21 economies amid profound economic, technological and geopolitical uncertainty. Under the theme “Building an Asia-Pacific Community to Prosper Together,” China’s APEC year emphasizes openness, innovation and cooperation, with the November summit culminating a year of ministerial, senior official and sectoral engagements.
One issue has become particularly urgent: energy security and resilience. The Asia-Pacific may be the world’s most dynamic economic region, but its continued prosperity depends on energy that is reliable, affordable, sustainable and resilient to disruption. Geopolitical conflicts, volatile markets, fragile supply chains, extreme weather, rising electricity demand and the accelerating shift toward renewables have sharpened a central dilemma: How can the region pursue the energy transition without sacrificing energy security?
That challenge was at the heart of the APEC Energy Think Tank Forum 2026, hosted by the China National Petroleum Corp. Economics and Technology Research Institute on Aug. 20 in Dalian, on the margins of APEC SOM3, the Third Senior Officials’ Meeting. I was invited to speak in the special seminar on “Energy Security and Regional Resilience.”
Under the broader theme “Balancing Security and Transition: Building a Stable and Prosperous Energy Future for the Asia-Pacific,” the forum’s central message was clear: the energy transition cannot succeed if it produces greater vulnerability. The real task is to make the Asia-Pacific cleaner, more diversified and more resilient at the same time. In this regard, I am sharing a condensed version of my presentation at the forum.
Energy security is economic security
For many years, we tended to think of energy security primarily in terms of one question: Do we have enough energy to keep the lights on, factories running and transportation moving?
Today, that definition is no longer sufficient. In an increasingly fragmented geopolitical environment, energy security has become economic security.
When oil or LNG (liquefied natural gas) supplies are disrupted, the consequences do not stop at the energy sector. Transportation costs rise. Electricity becomes more expensive. Manufacturing costs increase. Food prices can follow. Inflationary pressures intensify. Governments face greater fiscal burdens, while central banks face tougher monetary-policy choices.
And when energy costs become unpredictable, industrial competitiveness, investment decisions, supply chains, and ultimately, economic growth, are affected.
So, the central question before us is no longer simply: Where will our energy come from? The more important question is: How do we build economies that can absorb energy shocks without letting those shocks become economic crises?
This is particularly important for the Asia-Pacific — a region deeply integrated through trade, manufacturing, shipping, energy flows, technology and investment. The region’s greatest strength has been connectivity. But that connectivity also creates vulnerability when too much dependence is concentrated in a single supplier, route, technology, resource or geopolitical relationship. Therefore, I would argue that our objective should not be energy independence in the absolute sense.
For most economies, complete energy self-sufficiency is neither realistic nor economically efficient. Instead, what we need is diversified interdependence. That means having multiple energy sources, suppliers, transport routes, technologies, financing mechanisms and regional arrangements that can support one another when disruption occurs. In other words, resilience does not mean eliminating interdependence. It means preventing interdependence from becoming strategic dependence. And there is an important difference.
Interdependence creates mutual benefit. Strategic dependence arises when the failure — or political withdrawal — of one critical component can destabilize an entire economy. And this brings us to another important dilemma: the energy transition itself.
Energy transition
Across the Asia-Pacific, economies are accelerating renewable energy, electrification, battery storage, cleaner transportation and advanced energy technologies. This transition is necessary. But we must ask a difficult question: Are we eliminating old energy vulnerabilities — or simply replacing them with new ones?
Reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels may decrease exposure to oil and gas disruptions. But renewable and electrified energy systems require critical minerals, batteries, semiconductors, processing capacity, advanced grids and sophisticated technologies.
If these supply chains become excessively concentrated, then an economy may simply exchange dependence on imported petroleum for dependence on imported lithium, nickel processing, battery technologies, semiconductors or grid equipment.
The form of vulnerability changes. But the vulnerability itself remains. That is why energy-transition policy must be evaluated not only by how much carbon it removes, but also by how much resilience, affordability, technological capability and strategic flexibility it creates. This is where the current debate over de-risking matters most.
De-risking is understandable. Strategic reserves, supply chain diversification, investment screening, domestic capacity-building and domestic-security safeguards can all strengthen resilience.
But de-risking becomes dangerous when it turns into decoupling. If every economy responds to insecurity by imposing export restrictions, protectionist barriers, exclusive supply chains or competing geopolitical blocs, we may paradoxically make the entire regional energy system less secure.
Why? Because no economy possesses every resource, every technology, every financing capability and every industrial input required for the energy transition.
Energy security in the 21st century therefore cannot be built through fragmentation. It must be built through resilient connectivity.
For APEC, I believe this suggests the need to think seriously about an Asia-Pacific Energy Resilience Architecture built around several mutually reinforcing pillars.
Six pillars of energy resilience
Energy resilience in the Asia-Pacific ultimately rests on six essentials: diversification, connectivity, strategic reserves, regional coordination, critical-mineral security and openness.
Economies must avoid overdependence on any single supplier, fuel, technology, route, market or financing source. Stronger cross-border grids, LNG networks, infrastructure links and regional energy markets can spread risk and improve flexibility. At the same time, adequate petroleum and LNG reserves, storage, infrastructure redundancy and emergency mechanisms are essential buffers against sudden shocks.
Because energy disruptions do not stop at national borders, APEC also needs stronger information-sharing, mutual assistance and crisis-response mechanisms. The same logic applies to critical minerals: the energy transition cannot be secure if mining, processing and technology supply chains remain excessively concentrated. Diversification should therefore mean multiple production and processing centers, recycling systems, technological partnerships and transparent markets — not simply shifting dependence from one country to another.
And above all, the region must preserve openness. In an era of geopolitical rivalry, resilience should not excuse fragmentation. The goal is not energy self-sufficiency at all costs, but a more diversified, connected, cooperative and open regional energy system.
So perhaps the principle we need is simple: De-risk without decoupling. Diversify without fragmenting. Transition without creating new dependencies.
Conclusion
The successful energy transition of the Asia-Pacific will therefore not be measured by sustainability alone. It must simultaneously deliver security, affordability, economic resilience, technological flexibility and sustainability.
Because if energy becomes cleaner but unaffordable, the transition will lose public support. If it becomes greener but strategically fragile, our economies remain vulnerable. And if we pursue energy security through economic fragmentation, we may solve one problem while creating several others.
The real objective should therefore be neither complete self-sufficiency nor unrestricted dependence. It should be resilient interdependence — a regional energy system sufficiently connected to generate prosperity, sufficiently diversified to absorb shocks and sufficiently flexible to survive geopolitical uncertainty.
