A Maoist survival guide to the Iranian energy crisis

TO UNDERSTAND how China is weathering the energy shock from the Iran war, it helps to turn back five years to Xi Jinping’s visit to an ageing oilfield on China’s eastern coast. “We must hold the energy rice bowl firmly in our hands,” he told those around him as he toured a drilling platform.

His meaning was plain. Officials normally refer to controlling the rice bowl as shorthand for China producing enough grain to feed itself. Xi’s extension of the metaphor meant that China should seek self-sufficiency in energy, too.

Easier said than done, especially for the world’s biggest importer of oil. But Xi’s words came on top of decades of work to confront what the Communist Party sees as a major vulnerability: reliance on the fickle outside world for China’s essential needs.