This is an interesting chart: compared with other Asian countries, particularly U.S. allies Japan and the Philippines, China is actually not very reliant on oil travelling through the Strait of Hormuz (politico.com/news/2026/03/0)
Japan for instance depends on it for an incredible 91% of its oil imports and the Philippines 94%!
And all in all the narrative on the supposed reliance of China on Iranian oil is vastly overblown:
- First of all people don't realize China is very self-reliant when it comes to energy, especially with their massive green energy buildup: its energy self-sufficiency rate hit 84.6% last year (chinadaily.com.cn/a/202602/03/WS)
- Secondly, Iran constitutes 17% of China's oil imports (politico.com/news/2026/03/0) - less than Saudi Arabia - and oil represents roughly 59% of China's energy imports by energy content (when one converts import volumes to standard coal equivalent: andamanpartners.com/2025/10/chinas)
When you do the math, given that Iran is 17% of China's oil imports → oil is 59% of China's energy imports → energy imports are 15.4% of China's total energy consumption, this means that China depends on Iran for roughly 1.5% of its energy.
In other words, almost a rounding error for a country that's increasing its own primary energy production by 4.6% a year (usercontent.one/wp/www.cet.ene). They could replace Iran entirely in 4 months by simply doing more of the same.
Plus this all assumes that there is some sort of strategy by the U.S. to cut off China's energy supplies, when little suggests this. After taking over control of Venezuela's oil, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently admitted that they're principally selling it to... China (x.com/RnaudBertrand/).
