China’s Strait – China is urging the U.S. and Iran to end fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, even as Washington pushes its own pressure over shipping and sanctions. Beijing’s oil stockpile strategy has bought time—yet rising crude prices, tightening margins, and U.S. pe
The question hanging over China’s response to the Strait of Hormuz crisis is no longer whether Beijing can withstand an energy shock, but how long it can do so as costs mount and external pressure tightens.
China has repeatedly pushed for the strait to be reopened. issuing a joint message with the United States after U.S.. President Donald Trump traveled to Beijing for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.. Trump. in meetings centered on Chinese influence on Iran. pointed to a shared desire to end the standoff without allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.. After his talks, Trump told reporters: “We did discuss Iran.. We feel very similar about how we want that to end.. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon.. We want the straits open.” He also said Xi would consider resuming imports of U.S.. oil because of the strait crisis.
That request lands inside a fraught reality for Beijing.. China is close to Tehran and buys more than 80 percent of Iran’s oil. but Iran is not China’s main supplier overall because China still sources oil elsewhere.. The timing has also mattered: Chinese purchases of U.S.. oil, which peaked at roughly 4 percent of China’s total imports in 2020, were halted in May 2025 amid flaring trade tensions.
While China presses for an opening of one of the world’s most important shipping corridors, the stakes are not abstract for Asia’s economies. Japan sources nearly all of its oil through the Strait of Hormuz, South Korea as much as 70 percent, and China and India roughly half of their oil imports.
China’s Foreign Ministry on Friday urged the U.S.. and Iran to hammer out a ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. where commercial shipping has remained near a standstill since the Gulf conflict erupted earlier this year.. Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun cited the “severe losses” suffered by the Iranian people and countries across the region. along with “a heavy strain” on global growth. energy security and supply chains.
Beijing’s call for restraint also sits beside its complaints about what has happened in the gulf.. While China has condemned U.S.-Israeli attacks as illegal. it has also voiced displeasure with Iran’s reprisals against vessels and oil infrastructure.. In parallel diplomacy, China has worked with Pakistan to bring Tehran to the negotiating table across from the U.S.. At the same time. China has so far rebuffed Trump’s appeals for a more direct role. including potentially deploying naval vessels to safeguard shipping through the strait.. Michal Meidan. head of China Energy Research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. said China has not intervened diplomatically in the Middle East out of concern that it did not have enough leverage on all parties. that it would not be able to broker a deal. or that it could backfire given its extensive ties throughout the region.
Underlying the restraint is an effort to ride out disruption without immediately forcing a high-risk pivot. China has built extensive reserves, and its response to the strait crisis these past 11 weeks has shown how prepared Beijing is for the energy shock—for now.
But officials are getting impatient.
The rising cost of crude globally is driving up transportation and logistics costs. and tightening margins for manufacturing firms. according to the situation described in Beijing’s internal pressure.. Even with a buffer, the question becomes whether that buffer can absorb the knock-on economic effects for long.
The strain is visible in how China is weighing energy security against external constraints.. Washington has imposed sanctions against several Chinese teapot refineries and threatened secondary sanctions on banks doing business with them last month. adding another layer of urgency to Beijing’s calculations.
A single set of numbers helps explain why China has looked able to delay drastic action even as ships sit idle.. China is estimated to hold 1.4 billion barrels of crude across its storage network, according to the U.S.. Energy Information Administration, enough to cover at least three months of import demand.. Since building its first strategic reserve site in 2006. China has stepped up stockpiling. drawing lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical volatility such as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
China stepped up its stockpiling in early 2025. even as fuel demand in the country was believed to be peaking. after introducing an energy law requiring both state-owned and private-energy firms to maintain reserves.. China’s inventories of crude are fourfold the size of Japan’s and more than three times the size of the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
“The driving force behind this long-term trend is the Chinese government’s strong emphasis on energy security.. Ensuring a secure crude oil supply. improving inventory regulation. and expanding inventory capacity remain priorities in China’s next five-year plan. ” said Melissa Tan. director of communications in Asia at S&P Global Commodity Insights.
“Even though China’s oil demand is approaching its peak. the country remains highly dependent on imported crude. and total import volumes remain at elevated levels.. The rapid increase in crude inventory levels in 2025 was also supported by weaker oil prices and storage capacity expansion. ” she added.
The numbers also point to a wider shift in how demand growth has been changing.. China accounted for less than one-fifth of the global increase in oil demand in 2024. down from more than 60 percent between 2013 and 2023. according to the International Energy Agency. which attributed the shift to China’s transition from manufacturing-led to service-led growth and the rapid adoption of electric vehicles.
Other factors—beyond China’s own reserves—have further insulated it.. A global oil supply glut driven by sluggish consumption growth in advanced economies and OPEC+ producers raising output targets as new production came online has weighed on prices.. China’s high adoption of green energy. continued heavy coal use. and diversified oil supply sources have also helped buffer disruption.
The immediate question for Beijing is what happens if the Strait of Hormuz stays blocked longer than expected.. China’s oil imports in April fell by 20 percent to 38.5 million metric tons—or 9.4 million barrels per day—according to the country’s General Administration of Customs. the lowest figure since July 2022.. The contraction was expected to reflect the lag time for tankers departing the Persian Gulf on their weekslong journey to China.. S&P expects China to begin dipping into stockpiles this month.
Even so, the outlook is not described as a shortage crisis.. Meidan said, “China is not at risk of running out of crude for many months.. It’s a question of costs and broader economic impacts.” He added that even if the Strait of Hormuz were completely blocked. China can still source 60 percent of its oil from other suppliers outside the Middle East. including Russia’s sanctioned crude.. Domestic demand is also relatively weak, leading Chinese refiners to cut refinery runs.
Jianan Sun. senior oil analyst at Energy Aspects. said China’s supply losses—or the share of its crude imports likely to be cut off in a disruption—from Gulf volumes excluding Iran would amount to less than 20 percent of its total imports based on the 2025 average.. Oil sourced from the Middle East accounts for close to half of China’s crude imports.. While Chinese customs data does not officially record imports of Iranian oil because of U.S.. sanctions, Iranian crude makes up about 13 percent of China’s total imports, based on analytics firm Kpler estimates.
Those shipments are largely delivered via the so-called shadow fleet and transferred through ship-to-ship operations before delivery to China’s so-called “teapot refineries.” Largely in the northern province of Shandong. these independent refineries account for an estimated 25 to 30 percent of the country’s total refining capacity. according to estimates by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
That ability to keep refining is part of why China has felt freer to avoid the most extreme steps others have taken.. While Japan and South Korea tapped into strategic reserves and Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines introduced fuel-saving and fiscal measures to mitigate skyrocketing prices. China has faced less pressure to move quickly.. Still, its actions have been targeted.
China ordered refiners to suspend fuel exports on March 12.. The initial move bruised some neighboring economies. but China has since resumed exports of these three so-called clean fuels—gasoline. diesel and jet fuel—to countries including Australia. Malaysia and Sri Lanka. signaling that officials assess domestic inventories to be stable.
State energy companies this month are being allowed to export a total of 500. 000 metric tons of fuel. or around 16. 700 metric tons per day. Reuters reported. citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter.. That is more than double the roughly 10. 700 tons per day approved for April. though still well below the more than 53. 000 tons per day average seen last year. per Kpler.
These efforts align with Chinese Foreign Ministry pledges to provide support amid shortages in the region.. In addition to allowing Chinese state-run energy giants such as Sinopec to profit from higher international margins. the move functions “as a sign of goodwill to support regional economies. ” Meidan said.
Even with crude stockpiles acting as a cushion, China has less protection in liquefied natural gas. About 30 percent of China’s LNG imports come from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, leaving it more exposed to disruptions in Gulf shipping routes.
The pattern is hard to miss: Beijing keeps the Strait of Hormuz reopening at the center of its message. leans on stockpile capacity that can cover “at least three months of import demand. ” and then calibrates exports—suspending them March 12 and resuming with 500. 000 metric tons of fuel allowed this month—while Washington’s sanctions and crude-price pressure continue to rise.
China Strait of Hormuz Iran Donald Trump Xi Jinping oil reserves crude stockpiles teapot refineries LNG imports sanctions