I came across a really interesting research report that explains why, during the US–Iran war, after 20% of global crude oil supply was cut off, the world did not experience a true, full-blown oil crisis?

The root of the answer comes from a country you absolutely wouldn’t expect: China!

The timeline goes like this:
1. Before the US–Iran war broke out, China’s crude oil import volume was extremely high, but around the time the Strait of Hormuz was cut off, China suddenly halved its import volume!
And because of this reduction in supply, the impact of the supply shortfall caused by Iran was downgraded from a comprehensive crisis to nothing more than fluctuations in prices...

You might ask: China’s own demand is so huge—if it cuts off imports, isn’t that basically asking for death?
That leads to the second interesting data point: China’s crude oil reserves...

2. Although China’s crude oil reserve amount is state secret data, researchers estimated it using satellite data and still reached a shocking result: before the strait was cut off, China’s crude oil reserves had already reached an incredible 1.4 billion barrels...
What does this number mean? Answer: about one barrel per person on average in all of China...
And the total even exceeded the combined amount of the United States, Japan, Europe, and other major world economies...
So when China cut off its own crude oil imports, it could completely consume these reserves for more than a year...

3. Then where did this crude oil come from?
The answer is simple: Iran, Russia...
Through RMB transactions, China accumulated huge volumes of crude oil over the past period from two countries that had been excluded from the international oil settlement systems (dollar settlement)—and even obtained it at relatively low prices, with some additional benefits bundled in...

4. Why doesn’t China let crude oil prices surge uncontrollably? Isn’t the United States the enemy?
This question is even more interesting!

If you understand what the “Malacca Strait dilemma” means to China, you’ll know that for a long time, the main factor troubling China geopolitically and regarding the straits has been the “Malacca Strait”...
Because the importance of this strait to China is no less than the importance of the Hormuz Strait to the global economy.
So to deal with this issue, China secretly stockpiled large amounts of crude oil and designated it as state-secret data. And during this US–Iran problem, China for the first time had the ability to test whether the operation of its reserve system could sustain normal economic activity domestically after crude oil imports were cut off.
The result was obvious: China successfully passed the test.
In the end, it’s not that China intentionally saved the global market from an oil-price-driven crisis, but that this opportunity was difficult to replicate in the first place.
When Trump visited the US, this operation had already begun—so it may not necessarily have been the result of negotiations within the two countries, though that’s possible. I think it’s more like China quietly carried out an energy crisis drill, and used the occasion to sell the US and the world a favor...
And most importantly, it may indicate a fact: from now on, China has also become a global oil player, and the so-called “Malacca Strait dilemma” is no longer the core factor preventing China from dealing with issues related to the straits.
That’s also why this “good deed,” which is clearly something that could be promoted internationally as soft power, was completed entirely without any media coverage background...
Finally, one last note: the above data and some of the viewpoints come from a research institution called Kpler Research. I happened to come across it too, and it felt interesting, so I’m sharing it...
After all, based on this logic, if this US–Iran conflict didn’t evolve into a full economic crisis, China is the main contributor—because China helped cut the pressure on the global crude oil demand side by 60% through this kind of move...
And China doesn’t even want others to know that...