Chen Xinghua, Associate Professor, Department of Law, North China University of Technology
Since its inception (with the first draft in 2006), China’s Energy Law has been criticized for being more policy-heavy than practice-oriented. The 2020 draft version specifically aimed to address this issue by making the law more functional and user-friendly. Unfortunately, the current 2024 draft has removed many of the regulatory and institutional provisions and instead added more policy statements. Some issues of widespread concern, such as energy management, oversight, and regulation, were given less emphasis in the 2024 version than in the previous one.
Nevertheless, the latest draft introduces some noteworthy improvements. For example, it consolidates the sections on energy development, processing, conversion, supply and use into a single chapter, streamlining the legal text. It also includes new provisions on energy production, supply, storage, and sales, addressing some of the long-standing issues in the development of China’s energy sector.
