2024-07-26 15:16:18
Despite efforts to the contrary, China is heavily dependent on imports. The country is now apparently significantly expanding its storage capacity. Experts are concerned.
It is a development that is causing unrest in the US. China is apparently hoarding ever-increasing amounts of resources and materials. Since 2020, for example, China has increased its crude oil storage capacity from 1.7 billion barrels to two billion, reports The Economist.
While many of these sites are secret and China has stopped publishing data on them, Emma Li, an employee at data firm Vortexa, told the newspaper that satellite images suggest that at least the known deposits have grown rapidly since 2022.
The capacity of underground gas caves has also increased sixfold within ten years to 2020, to 15 billion cubic meters. Next year, the capacity is expected to reach 55 billion cubic meters. In addition, China is building storage capacity for liquefied natural gas on its coasts. According to the Economist, the bank JP Morgan Chase estimates that the total storage capacity for gas will be 85 billion cubic meters by 2030.
The presumably rapid expansion is worrying many experts in the USA. Added to this is the fact that raw materials are currently particularly expensive and China’s economy is weakening – and yet the government is still buying on a large scale. “If you put this in relation to China’s military build-up, it becomes very worrying,” says Gabriel Collins, a former analyst at the US Department of Defense. Because the supplies that the country is currently amassing are those that it will need in the event of a conflict. For example, in the event of an escalation around the island of Taiwan.
The communist government in Beijing considers Taiwan to be part of its territory and wants to bring the island under its control, although it has never ruled it before and an independently elected government has been in power there for decades. Beijing is citing history: after the Second World War, Taiwan was awarded to the Republic of China. However, a civil war raged there between the communists and the supporters of the nationalist Chinese Kuomintang. When the nationalists lost, they fled to Taiwan and continued to rule there as the Republic of China.
The stated strategy of China’s President Xi Jinping is to make his country self-sufficient – and thus less vulnerable to external pressure. The country has been hoarding supplies of a strategic nature since the end of the Cold War. But China’s extreme economic growth in recent decades has also led to a significant increase in the need for imported goods. For example, China’s energy supply is heavily dependent on imports, and the country has to import large parts of its oil and gas requirements.
But it is not just energy resources that China is hoarding. According to reports, the high import figures for computer chips and materials such as copper, nickel and other metals are also striking.
According to “The Economist”, there are three events in particular that have prompted China to hoard more: tariffs that the USA introduced under former President Donald Trump and to which China had to respond with counter-tariffs, for example on soybeans, the corona pandemic, which massively disrupted supply chains, and the war in Ukraine. According to “The Economist”, the current level of stocks suggests a defensive measure and is not yet sufficient for a conflict. However, it must be closely monitored to see when this point is exceeded.