Roughly half of China's crude oil imports and one-third of its liquefied natural gas imports transit the Strait of Hormuz, making Beijing one of the most exposed major economies in the current crisis. Yet two decades of aggressive electrification have given China a buffer that no other large importer possesses.

Jason Bordoff and Meghan L. O'Sullivan write in Foreign Affairs that electricity now accounts for more than 30 percent of China's final energy consumption, thanks to a massive expansion of domestic power generation from coal and renewable sources. The country has simultaneously built up a large strategic oil reserve, while the United States has been selling off its own stockpile, according to Foreign Affairs.

The authors argue that China is now likely to accelerate its electrification of transport and industry, pursue even larger domestic and overseas sources of critical minerals, and continue expanding reserves, grid infrastructure and storage. Beijing's approach amounts to pursuing resilience not through full autarky but by combining domestic capacity with careful integration into global markets.

That strategy carries its own risks. When Beijing restricted rare-earth exports in 2025 in response to U.S. export controls, it sent shock waves through Washington and European capitals. Automakers on both sides of the Atlantic struggled to secure parts, some production was interrupted, and European prices for key components of electric vehicles soared.

Bordoff and O'Sullivan note that China's dominance in the emerging clean energy economy gives Beijing "plenty of levers to pull." The country controls much of the world's critical mineral processing and dominates supply chains for solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles. Dependence on these supply chains, the authors warn, can be weaponized just as easily as dependence on fossil fuels.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill observed back in 1913 that "safety and certainty in oil lie in variety and variety alone." The authors argue the same principle holds for all forms of energy - and that no country has internalized it more systematically than China.

"Hvylya" previously explored how China's energy fortress exposes the assumption Europe got catastrophically wrong.