The Chinese are stockpiling resources – food, fuel, and materials – to help it endure a protracted conflict with the US. Is this something to be concerned about?
If China wants 120 days of stockpile, good for them, but it’s not going to help. China is completely import dependent; they rely on imports for energy, food, and raw materials and their economy is tied to the global supply chain. As soon as war breaks out, all that is going away.
Even if China has a 120-day stockpile, it’s not going to be very secure. Oil will be vulnerable to attacks. Food will be subjected to poor storage infrastructure and will likely spoil. So, that 120-day stockpile isn’t looking so strong anymore.
And if you start to factor in naval blockades, no access to US markets, and the power projection of the US, this stockpile quickly turns into the same smoke and mirrors that the Chinese are so great at.
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Hey, everybody. Peter Zeihan here. Coming to you from a toilet in New Zealand. I just had to do a video here for The View, which I will share with you now.
So you’re not going to have my ugly mug on this one. But just keep in mind the theme of where I am and what I’m doing. Anyway, the question from the Patreon page is pretty straightforward. China is stockpiling all kinds of things foods, fuels, materials, in order to survive a protracted conflict with the United States.
Is that something that will work and the short version is no. China is the world’s largest importer of energy, food stuffs. The materials they need to grow food, as well as every mineral in the world. There really isn’t a lot of raw material that is produced within China. It’s brought in, it’s processed, it’s turned into value added goods, mostly manufacturing, and then export it.
So China is vulnerable to cut offs at all stages of production chain of every industry in the world. Now they are. Yes, storing lots of stuff. But let’s assume for the moment they get to the goal of having 120 days of import cover for oil. Well, number one, so that would last them 120 days. Number two, they don’t have the salt domes at the United States has.
So storing has to be largely done above ground, which means it’s something you can hit with a missile, which means that in a hot war, it’s all going to be gone within the first couple of days anyway. And keep in mind, the Chinese are vulnerable to the United States sea power, not just on the Chinese coast, but anywhere that can interdict anything, with the Strait of Malacca arguably being the most sensitive spot, because that’s where about 80% of their oil imports come from.
Same basically goes for food. Storing food requires storage facilities. So a while ago, the Chinese built a massive corn storage facility, but all it was was giant piles of corn piled up along the side of the road. And they all rotted within a year, and it all went to nothing. Some version of that will happen for everything.
And even if I’m wrong about energy and food and all the material inputs, they still have to export stuff. And their number one customer is the United States. So the Chinese battle plan literally is for the United States Navy to all sail within sight of the shore so that the Chinese can hit them with their air force. And then for the United States to continue to patrol the global ocean.
So they can still import all the food and energy that they want, and that the United States will still keep its market open so that the Chinese can pay for everything. It’s a stupid, stupid, stupid plan. And so if there ever is a real fight between the Americans and the Chinese, not saying there will be, I honestly don’t think there will be.
But if there ever is. Then the Chinese will be in the same situation. I am in the shitter. Although the view won’t be nearly as good.
