China on the way to being the first electro-state |
China’s careful approach to ensuring its energy security is paying off, even as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz damages the global economy.
The entire world is being hurt by the US/Israel war on Iran, particularly by the closure of the Hormuz Strait, doubly closed, first by Iran, and then by the US. Everywhere the cost is being counted in increased fuel, fertiliser and food prices, higher inflation and interest rates, and a weaker global economy.
China, however, has prudently prepared itself for such event in numerous ways. As an increasingly voracious energy consumer, it has long known the danger from its external energy sources being cut. At the end of 2003, then-Chinese premier Hu Jintao made a closed-door speech to the Communist Party leadership in a Central Economic Work Conference that became known as the ‘Malacca Dilemma’ speech.
He warned that China’s energy security was vulnerable to ‘certain powers’ (clearly a reference to the US) controlling the Strait of Malacca, the 2.8-kilometre-wide strip of water between Malaysia and Singapore, through which China’s oil has to pass. In 2004, that threat was expanded to include the Strait of Hormuz, identified as the ‘Malacca Hormuz Axis’.
China is countering such a threat in two ways. First, it has chosen increasingly to move away from traditional energy sources. Second, when........