Abstract: Energy diplomacy is one of the important measures to ensure China’s energy security. As for the question that whether the improvement of bilateral political relations brought about by energy diplomacy has effectively promoted China’s petroleum trade security, this paper adopts the panel data from 37 countries during the period of 1993-2016 to conduct an empirical test based on the PPML method. It also explores in detail its periodical characteristics and state structural effects. The findings show that the bilateral political relations would significantly affect the depth and breadth of China’s oil imports, that is, the scale of imports and the possibility of expanding the source of imports, but the impact on the price of imported oil is not obvious. The improvement of bilateral political relations is conducive to safeguarding China’s oil imports security, while China’s oil import prices are also affected by the fundamentals of its supply and demand. To this end, China should further strengthen its energy diplomacy, give full play to the positive role of the Belt and Road Initiative, while at the same time reduce excessive dependence on specific oil importing countries, and comprehensively use diplomatic, economic and other means to ensure energy security.

Key words: bilateral political relations; oil import trade; PPML model