China’s Achilles Heel Is Its Soaring Energy Demand
This problem will ease in time as Chinas growth shrivels more and more. For the moment, the subterfuge still holds up as China pumps record amounts of money into the Belt and Road as well as ghost cities and White Elephants. To hell with profitability. This feeds the thirst for energy. But this also will come to bite China and the longer this continues, the harder the fall is going to be. Some economists speculate that growth is already negative and that what we see in numbers from China is nothing but a huge paper patch exercise. I would be surprised if the Chinese leadership actually knew how bad things really are. But like with every Ponzi scheme, as long as the dice rolls, you must throw in more in order to prevent the facade from crumbling as you know what happens then. At least this will reduce energy demand.
China continues to set records in numerous sectors, but there are some records better left alone, including drawing near to becoming the all-time global crude oil imports leader. The country imported 10.68 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil in April, according to China’s General Administration of Customs, falling just 0.8 percent off the all-time record set by the U.S. back in 2005 at 10.77 million bpd.
