Central Asian countries are located in the heartland of the Eurasian Continent. Their geographic location puts their energy flows under tremendous geopolitical pressure from the countries along their limited number of pipelines. With energy trade data from the United Nations Comtrade Statistics Database in the period from 2005 to 2016, this paper evaluates energy security of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan (exporter) and Kyrgyzstan (importer) using three standards: correlativeness, diversity, and the impact of international relations. It concludes that Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan’s oil markets are balanced in terms of correlation and diversification, and thus less subject to geopolitical pressure. Turkmenistan’s gas markets, on the other hand, still have tremendous exposure to geopolitical risks for lack of diversification. Kyrgyzstan, as an energy importer, could rely on a few neighboring countries for energy supply. We found out that the three Central Asian countries’ energy security is largely determined by four political factors: the relationship with Russia, the new “great game” in Eurasia, the rise of China, and Central Asian regional geopolitical configuration.

Collective forest tenure reform and water rights system reform are two types of resource system reform initiated by the Chinese government since the implementation of the reform and opening policy of the 1980s. Forest tenure reform has been completed and water rights system reform is ongoing. This study analyzes key points and problems with collective forest tenure reform and summarizes four typical successful reform measures and lessons that will have implications for the developing water rights system: the collective forest-cutting quota system, collective forest tenure compensation, collective forest tenure confirmation, and collective forest tenure trading center. A flexible water permission index, compensation measures in water rights trade, water rights approval, and various forms of water rights trading platforms are proposed as reform measures. This study fills a gap in comparative studies between two important resource system reforms in China and provides a reference for further reform and development of water rights systems locally and abroad.