If China hadn’t done something incredible over the past 5 months, you and I and much of the world would be living very differently right now. This has gotten relatively little coverage, and even China has not been talking about it. A YouTube show called The Bigger Picture covered it, and some mainstream outlets have reported on pieces of it.
What Was Supposed to Happen
As you’ll recall, many pundits and networks warned that once Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, 20% of the global oil supply would disappear overnight. This would cause an oil shock, heavily impacting the global economy.
- US gasoline would sell at $6 to 9 a gallon, causing an average American to spend over $100 every time they fill up their car.
- Airfares would rise 30 to 80%, causing a simple US domestic flight to cost $700 or more.
- Certain foods would double in cost and restaurant bills would go up 30%.
- European gas and electric bills could go up 75%.
- We’d see rolling blackouts.
- Many countries would likely start fuel rationing and institute decreased business hours.
- A serious recession, and likely a depression, would hit the Western world.
You get the idea. Not pretty. And people living on a tight budget would suffer the most, of course. It’s always the rest of us who suffer for the rich man’s wars.
So far, most of that hasn’t happened. Surprisingly, we all owe a big thank you to China.
Why Hasn’t It Happened
Let’s break down the math. 100 million barrels of oil are both produced and consumed every day. As mentioned, 20 million a day were lost to the Strait of Hormuz closure. After that, various pipelines increased their oil flow and added 7 million barrels a day. So that decreases the hit to negative 13 million barrels a day. Many countries have opened up their reserve stockpiles in order to add another 2.5 million per day. But there’s a catch.
Most countries do not have oil stockpiles that will last very long. For some of them, it’s only days. For the US, it’s a few months.
China’s stockpile dwarfs the stockpiles of the rest of the world combined — and it might even be much more than 1.4 billion barrels because that estimate comes from just the visible stockpiles, not what might be hidden away.
Anyway, if you take the negative 13 million barrels a day and subtract another 2.5 million from the stockpiles, you get a shortfall of 10.5 million barrels missing per day. So 10% of the global oil need is still nonexistent.
Yet, as the unhinged, psychotic US war on Iran continued in March and April, the markets showed that the global economy was not suffering nearly as much as expected and the global oil supply was only 5% below the norm, rather than 10.5%. So people with big brains scrambled to figure out what the hell was happening.
It turned out China had slashed its oil imports by nearly 50%, essentially saving the global economy. But no one knew why. The Atlantic called it “The Great Chinese Oil Mystery.” This chart shows China’s oil imports falling off a cliff:
How Did They Do It
China was able to cut their imports so drastically using a variety of tactics. They asked Chinese people to use less gas (travel less or do so by train, bike, etc. instead of car). They began using more coal power (unfortunately). They dipped into their massive petroleum stockpiles. And finally, they used unbelievable amounts of green energy. In fact, every single week China builds the green energy infrastructure equivalent to five nuclear power plants.
Meanwhile, here’s an image of recent US green energy infrastructure:
Why Has China Done This
Why would China save the global economy and rescue the US and Europe from the ramifications of their disastrous, insane, unhinged, Tasmanian Devil-esque war on Iran?? And why would they do so while barely talking about it? Well, here are the possible reasons:
- This move gives China massive power against the US. It shows that China cannot be beaten simply by cutting off oil imports. It also shows that China has the power to prop up (or knock down) the global economy. Right now it is only because of China that the US and Europe are not on their knees.
- Saving the global economy also protects China’s economy. If a large percentage of the countries China exports to were to suddenly struggle or collapse, China’s own economy would be in major trouble. But if it props up the global oil supply, their own economy keeps humming along. While the US suffers with this catastrophic war on Iran, China does not.
- Finally, this proves China is now a major player when it comes to the energy that powers the world. The US is no longer a hegemon. The petrodollar is no longer god. Iran has proven its power to control the Strait of Hormuz, and China has proven their power to control the global economy.
This is the nail in the coffin for US imperial power, with even American propaganda toilet paper like CNN admitting China has won the Iran War. The US ruling elite got into the War on Iran partially to protect and strengthen the petrodollar. It has had the exact opposite impact. China has used the petroyuan to build up petroleum reserves larger than the rest of the world combined. And at least for now, we have China to thank for saving the global economy while the US tries to set fire to everything.