Another way you could say that would be "The top item on Hu Jintao’s agenda was securing external sources of energy satisfy the massive demand that started in early 2000".

Not just different words, but simpler ones: The increase in domestic energy use, as well as the increased dependence on foreign sources in the 2000s, made energy security Hu Jintao's first international concern. Does that help? Incidentally, I don't like the comma after '2000s' in the original. The way I learned, there should be 0 or more than one comma between subject and verb, never one. "The surge and the reliance, pushed...." looks so wrong to me. Others say you can use commas for clarity or pauses, but this is an unresolved debate. I hate that comma, personally.