Some notable divergence is emerging in recent years between the energy profile of the United States and that of China. The robust production of unconventional oil and gas is increasing the level of energy self-sufficiency for the United States while China's continued economic growth is increasing its import dependence. Political drive for bilateral cooperation in the area of clean energy, combined with comparative advantages arising from the diverging energy profiles, is bringing the two countries closer to cooperate on nuclear energy and shale gas.

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Sino-Russian Energy Relations have witnessed a series of drastic changes during the last ten years, but are set to experience a huge expansion in terms of both scope and degree in the coming ten years. Sino-Russian energy cooperation is being driven by China's necessity of taking the maximum crude supply from Russia, while the continuously delayed Sino-Russian gas price-deal became the main stumbling block for Sino-Russian energy cooperation. The scale of the bilateral energy cooperation will expand hugely once the compromise on the long-delayed gas price-deal is made. This price-deal breakthrough will usher in a new era of Sino-Russian energy cooperation. On top of this, Sino-Russian coal and electricity cooperation is gaining momentum, and the scope of Sino-Russian energy relations will likely broaden rapidly and its contribution to the trading volume of both countries will be significant. One thing certain is that the current boundaries of Sino-Russian energy cooperation will expand substantially in the coming years and the implications towards regional and global politics and energy trading will not be small.

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The Japan–USSR collaborative Sakhalin continental shelf exploration and development project existed from the mid-1970s to the beginning of the 1990s, and was called the 'Sakhalin Project'. It was a project that became a forerunner for, as today, the waters around Sakhalin Island being divided into nine blocks and given the names Sakhalin I and Sakhalin II, etc. As regards this project—moved forward by SODECO which became the agent on the Japanese side—oil was extracted from Exploratory Well No. 1 in autumn 1977, and around 1980 there was expectation for the start of production. While the formulation of development and production plans had been moved forward regarding the subsequently discovered commercial amounts of natural gas, amid the changes in the environment this project company ended its role at the beginning of the 1990s, handing the project on to a successor company. This project had not only become the foundation for Japan–USSR (Russia) energy cooperation: there is no small number for the legacies left to both Japan and the USSR (Russia).

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Having joined the WTO in 1997, Mongolia is a country with relatively liberal trade policies; but the country is not yet party to any regional or bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs). At the outset toward further robust economic development, Mongolia is keen to diversify its export markets. Recently, Mongolia began talks on concluding an EPA (Economic Partnership Agreement) with Japan. An analysis using the CGE model and employing the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) 8 Data Base revealed that the macroeconomic impacts of Mongolia's bilateral FTAs with the four Northeast Asian countries of Russia, the ROK, Japan and China—Mongolia's major trading partners—would be almost negligible. This result was consistent with the fact that currently Mongolia's import tariff rates are already relatively low and the partner countries exercise almost near zero-tariffs for Mongolia's major export commodities, of mining and livestock origin. Raw materials or low value-added products of mining or livestock origin account for more than 90% of the country's total exports. However, some of Mongolia's manufacturing industries, such as textiles and apparel, leather and meat products can expect positive changes in their value-added along with increases of export sales. Also, these sectors would be the greatest potential sources of employment generation in Mongolia. Yet due to the relatively small shares of these products within Mongolia's exports, their impacts on the country's GDP were very small. Therefore, Mongolia needs to promote high value-added, export-oriented industries if the economy aims to benefit from free trade agreements with its trading partners.

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