Social responsibility and resource extraction: Are Chinese oil companies different?

Abstract

In order to meet China’s rapidly increasing demand for oil, Chinese oil companies have been investing in oil production around the world. This article addresses one specific aspect of the more generalized fears expressed about China’s increasing demand for natural resources which is the impact that its oil companies will have on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement. In doing so, it limits its analysis to the three main Chinese oil companies: the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and their investments in sub-Saharan Africa.While acknowledging that Chinese oil companies are unlikely to push resource-rich governments to promote democracy or respect human rights, fears of their negative impact on CSR in the resource extractive industries are misconceived and overblown. Such fears are based on fundamental misconceptions of what CSR can do and how much its Western proponents have achieved. They are also based on misconceptions of the role of Chinese oil companies in global energy markets and they do not withstand a critical comparative evaluation of the respective CSR performance of Western and Chinese oil companies. In addressing the question posed in our title – are Chinese oil companies really different on CSR? – the answer is yes, but the differences are not all that big nor do they matter all that much.