This is not the cold war and China will be stupid to create a list of enemies, much less based on the use of Chinese 5G. Even for Great Britain, China is still doing deals with them. It is a balance of pros and cons. What can the country offer and how much they help versus how much they negatively impact the country. For example, during the early days of Covid-19, Russia sent medical equipment to Italy. Not long after that, Italy participated in a NATO military exercise aimed at Russia. Russia would be stupid to take offense in that. It depends on what else Italy was doing and how much would that negatively impact Russia. Of course carrots and sticks will be used with foreign policy, as the case of Australia showing the sticks side. At the end, you want to maximize the group that is at least neutral and minimize the group that is against you.
China's SCS Strategy Thread
- Thread starter lilzz
- Start date
China already economically sanctioning Australia and Canada big time currently for being US pawns. Both of them booted Chinese 5G already. So you saying China being stupid doing that.
It's just the reality
As good as it sounds still not economically feasible if oil to be pumped from Pakistan to China. The Karakoram mountain range is a 4 km+ wall to overcome to pump oil. If it was economically viable, they could have done it long time ago. It is just to expensive to pump oil to that height. It may need a series of storage and pumping stations along the line to get oil through Xinjiang. Maybe gas pipeline from Pakistan to China is economically viable as gas is much lighter than oil. So less energy transport cost.
Currently the only cheaper overland route oil to China is the Myanmar China oil and gas pipeline but very miniscule capacity.
Ocean going routes are still the cheapest way to transport materials per unit weight.
A better way to secure the energy lines in the ocean is having military bases along the Indian ocean, maybe in Pakistan, Sri lanka or Myanmar or all of them.
The best way to overcome this oil dependence is to hasten China's carbon neutrality pledge. If gas vehicles (save the military vehicles and big delivery trucks) can just be phased out in 5 to 10 years, China's oil demand probably could drop to 80 to 90 %.
If a blockade happens, cost of transport is besides the point. The difference between paying a little more for oil and having your economy come to a grinding halt is huge. Currently, without the blockade, the plan of record is ocean shipping.
I am not saying that they are stupid to use their sticks along with their carrots. So far, they are using it very judiciously, which is a good thing. All I am saying is that they would be stupid to make more enemies than absolutely necessary.
PiSigma
"the engineer"
Pumping oil in pipelines over mountains is not a big deal. The bigger the pump, the more efficient they get.
Good example is the trans-mountain pipeline from Edmonton to Vancouver. It is actually bidirectional, so the uphill portion with pumping stations is nothing new. It will add to the cost for sure, but pipeline is cheaper than shipping even with the additional pumping stations.
How are oil pipelines any safer in case of a naval blockade? A blockade is already an act of war. Your enemy can just use drones to target your pipeline/pumps. Granted China is not Saudi Arabia, but U.S. isn't Houthi either, and no other country is capable of blockading China. Indeed attacking pipelines is likely simpler than blockading.
Gas vehicles use nowhere near that much oil:
Foton is already selling hydrogen fuel cell heavy trucks.
It is one thing to interdict ships, quite another to start slinging missiles at a country. In the open sea, the U.S. navy is unchallenged. The Chinese have missiles that will fire back in case they are attacked. The U.S., with our bases around China, are vulnerable to the same attacks. The escalation path is also much shorter if you start slinging missiles.