By Sumanta Sen, Pasit Kongkunakornkul, Sam Li, Lewis Jackson and Colleen HowePublished March 31, 2026 18:00 GMT-4
The world’s largest importer of oil through the Strait of Hormuz is, paradoxically, also one of the best placed to weather the waterway’s closure.
China consumes oceans of oil from the Gulf and imports roughly as much from the region as India, Japan and South Korea combined. In response to the closure of the Strait, officials across Asia are asking citizens to take shorter showers or work from home to save energy. In China, the ruling Communist Party’s flagship newspaper is instead telling readers the country holds its own “energy rice bowl.”
While the editorial does not mention that Beijing has unofficially banned fuel exports to conserve supplies, the country is nonetheless more insulated than many of its neighbours thanks to years of policy measures that have reduced its vulnerability to energy shocks.
China boasts an electric vehicle fleet about as large as the rest of the world’s combined, vast and growing oil stockpiles, diversified supplies of oil, and gas and an electricity grid that is almost insulated from imports thanks to domestic coal and renewables.
“The current situation is really close to what Chinese planners have had in mind for decades,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, co-founder of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air in Finland.
“It validates the drive to reduce reliance on seaborne fossil fuels.”
The unexpected EV boom
In late 2020, Beijing issued a goal for electric vehicle purchases to hit 20% of new sales in 2025. By last year, sales hit half of all new vehicles.That unexpected boom in EVs means China’s fuel consumption has topped out after decades of breakneck growth. The country is burning and importing less oil than it was expected to just a few years ago.
Oil displaced by EVs last year was roughly equal to what China imported from Saudi Arabia, according to estimates from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
