China fears that the war in the Middle East will expand due to the ongoing confrontation in the Palestinian territories, which will inflict huge economic losses on it. Although Beijing does not have any direct presence in the region, this does not mean that its interests do not depend on this region. the world.
According to a report published by the American newspaper “The New York Times”, China has one major reason that prompts it to remain neutral about what is happening in the region between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which also makes it its interest in the return of the truce and raises its fear of the expansion of the war and geopolitical tensions.
As for the “one and biggest reason” for China, it is oil, as China is the largest buyer of oil from the Gulf region, as “a third of the total oil burned in China comes from the Gulf region.”
“China has also started buying more oil from Iran,” says Andon Pavlov, chief refining and oil products analyst at Kpler Analysts in Vienna. “China has also more than tripled its imports of Iranian oil in the past two years and bought 87% of Iranian oil exports this month.” the past”.
China is “highly vulnerable to the current instability in the Middle East, especially if it escalates,” said Philip Andrews-Speed, a long-time specialist on Chinese oil politics at the National University of Singapore.
He added: “China, the second largest economy in the world, has become addicted to foreign oil at an astonishing pace. Until recently, in the early 1990s, China was self-sufficient in oil. Now, it depends on imports for about 72% of its oil needs.”
The American newspaper says that Chinese President Xi Jinping maintained energy security as one of the country’s most important priorities throughout the decade he spent in office.
“Energy supply and security are crucial to national development and people’s livelihoods, and they are important to the country and cannot be ignored at any moment,” Xi said last July.
To this end, China has made huge investments in electric vehicles. Bill Russo, an automotive consultant in Shanghai, said China now dominates global production of electric cars, and by last August a third of cars sold in China were electric.
But the New York Times confirms that gasoline consumption has remained high despite the boom in electric cars.
2023-10-29 17:36:16
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