Foreign & Public Diplomacy

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief.

The highlights this week: The Iran war disrupts China’s oil supply, Taiwan’s parliament approves a new U.S. arms package, and the Chinese public goes wild for artificial intelligence tool OpenClaw.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief.

The highlights this week: The Iran war disrupts China’s oil supply, Taiwan’s parliament approves a new U.S. arms package, and the Chinese public goes wild for artificial intelligence tool OpenClaw.

China Feels the Pressure on Hormuz

Only Iranian tankers are guaranteed passage through the Strait of Hormuz amid the ongoing war—and their oil is heading to China. The country buys around 90 percent of Iranian oil exports, but the disruption is still hitting its supply hard.

Before the war, China received 5.35 million barrels of oil per day via the Strait of Hormuz, but that figure has dropped to roughly 1.22 million (coming exclusively from Iran). Some analysts have suggested that this oil shock will ultimately benefit China by accelerating its green energy transition. But Beijing hardly needs another push in a sector it already dominates.

If anything, the crisis may speed the rest of the world’s adoption of Chinese green technologies, as FP columnist Jason Bordoff and research scholar Erica Downs write.

China’s more immediate concerns are economic. Its post-pandemic recovery remains fragile, and the costs of losing both oil supplies and agricultural imports due to the Iran war could deepen its slowdown. Tehran, meanwhile, appears eager to cultivate goodwill in Beijing by reportedly offering to allow tankers to transit the strait if the cargo is in yuan.

In practice, coordinating such an arrangement during wartime seems implausible, especially given the uncertainties around insurance,........

© Foreign Policy