We've seen innumerable examples, from local, state and national governments all over the world, that human greed and malfeasance can undo any amount of good that might otherwise be achieved. It looks like a fundamental element of the human condition.
It seems that the latest country to discover (yet again) the truth of that statement is China.
In late May Chinese leaders travelled to the Zhoushan National Oil Reserve and discovered the nation’s strategic oil reserves weren’t there. For over a year, the disruption of oil supplies from Venezuela and Iran had left Chinese oil reserves reduced. Despite that, government documents indicated that China still had 1.2 billion tons of oil reserves. That’s equivalent to 8,756,117,022 barrels.
China’s strategic oil reserve, to the surprise of the government officials who went to verify the reserves in May, was instead composed of water, sludge, various debris and overflow from nearby sewer lines.
. . .
What happened to Chinese oil? It was soon discovered that corrupt government officials and oil reserve personnel had sold the oil and pocketed the proceeds. The local buyers were often operators of small, locally owned refineries that turned the oil into commercial products that were sold throughout China. Most of these oil criminals then fled, often leaving China for sanctuary states that would welcome any affluent Chinese and their new wealth. The only winners were a few conniving Chinese and the Americans, who continued to dominate the global energy system.
. . .
The theft of China’s strategic oil reserves is only the latest of several recent awful discoveries of massive corruption impeding the ambition of its leader, President Xi, to conquer Taiwan. The last one concerned military corruption in building equipment to invade Taiwan, and was discovered in 2023. Missile fuel tanks were found to be filled with water, missile silo lids could not be opened, and the protective concrete missile silos themselves were so defective they might as well have been made of wood. The air force and navy lacked sufficient spare parts for even a week of operations against Taiwan and many aircraft and naval vessels were outright inoperable. This postponed the earliest possible date for the invasion of Taiwan from 2025 to 2027.
The non-existence of China’s strategic oil reserve will probably have the same effect ... There are at least major possibilities that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan has been postponed for another two years, to 2029, and perhaps indefinitely due to further discoveries of calamitous-scale corruption.
There's more at the link.
I've been unable to confirm this article from Strategy Page through independent sources. Other reports at about the same time don't mention missing oil reserves - only that the reserves exist. Is the situation as bad as Strategy Page believes? I'm not sure . . . but the history of corruption in government enterprises that has come out of China over the past few decades would suggest that there's no smoke without fire.
If true, this might help to explain why China has not been extremely vocal in its reaction to developments spearheaded by the USA in Venezuela and Iran. If it didn't have the reserves to allow it relative independence of action, that would certainly put a crimp in China's style.
Will we ever know the truth? I suspect it'll be carefully censored and filed away.
Peter
15 comments:
We will never know if it's propaganda or basic Chinese greed in action.
The timing of the release of this information is curious. If it was released a few weeks ago it would have made China's behind the scenes influence weaker (China In TROUBLE).
Releasing this today perhaps to counteract the facts that America's Strategic Oil Reserves are essentially ZERO as a "They're doing as poorly as we are argument?
Either way you and I are going to see serious disruptions that Trump's dumping the Strategic oil reserve to hide for months.
Hope you paid attention to Chevron's CEO and others reporting that synthetic oil will be in short supply due to the idiocy of fighting Israel's Epstein War.
How many Semi's that carry everything in America will be without regular oil changes as their new engines require synthetic oils.
For want of a nail, eh?
BTW for the talking heads claiming a GLUT of OIL about to happen "because the Strait is now OPEN" here's a decent technical post about that issue:
https://www.unz.com/article/what-triggered-trump-to-make-the-deal-with-iran/
We're going to see months and perhaps years before the damages done by this Epstein's war is resolved.
ASSUMING we can get our "best Ally Ever" Israel to stop violating the ceasefire trying to get America back into THEIR FIGHT with Iran.
As long as Israel is under combat situations Bibi cannot under Israeli law be tried for his long-delayed corruption charges. Losing the Iran war wouldn't help Bibi's chances to stay out of Prison.
As Paul Harvey might say "The REST of the Story".
I saw similar reports on X just after the visit occurred. I couldn't see any confirmation then either. I suspect we'll never find out for sure, but checking the future careers of the people in charge of the reserves will probably be informative. IIRC a few ears ago there was a similar rumored surprise inspection of ICBMs that discovered that many of them had water rather than rocket fuel and that was confirmed by seeing the disappearance of senior officers in the PLARF
For goodness sake, I know for a fact that at least one air base commander back just after WWII used to send chocolate in place of fighter ammunition when dispatching fighters to do demonstrations in the Nordic countries, but who fills ICBM sites with water rather than rocket fuel?
I mean at least the chocolate made sense, the black market being what it was at the time, but who would you even sell rocket fuel to? I mean would you simply contact your nearest Soviet (I'm guessing it happened in the Cold War.) Officer or KGB spy and say something like "I've got a sale on for X amount of rocket fuel, what can you offer me for it?" Seriously wtf?
- W
I call bullshit. Can find no independent news sources for this story, which seems to have originated on X. China's strategic reserves are spread across numerous facilities, not a single tank farm, there's been not a peep which would have been unlikely to impossible after top Chinese official visits. and the The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently estimated that China holds roughly 1.4 billion barrels of strategic oil inventories, making it the world's largest holder of strategic reserves. As for Taiwan, why would the PRC invade? It's waited 77 years already and has made the island economically dependent on China while the U.S. wants to move semiconductor product out of Taiwan to the US and offers nothing but the promise of being the next Ukraine.
Rocket fuel was kerosene so sellable as cooking fuel on the black market.
China and Russia treat idiots and traitors poorly. Dying from falling out of windows for folks a bit too powerful and penal colonies or firing squads for others.
Idea is to encourage better behavior from the rest. Since Russia and China manage to make decent weapons at about 10% of American manufactures they may be onto something.
Truth or a very strange lie ?
Mark my words, we are going to regret not blowing up the Iran oil fields.
With a few occasional exceptions humans are greedy selfish and shortsighted. It's why we may be temporarily successful as a species but we won't be around for a long time.
No confirmation, and we'll probably never know the truth...
There will be investigations of everyone who is in a position to sell that oil reserve off. Anyone who has a buncha $$$ that they can't explain, or Swiss accounts, etc is gonna get shot.
The story is about leaders visiting the reserve in late May.
Today is roughly the middle of June.
The topic is fairly detrimental to the state.
Given the apparent speed of publication of the story, I wonder if:
1) the press is not that controlled by the CCP as we have been led to believe;
or,
2) this story is the product of deceit designed to mislead the reader to the benefit of the state.
or,
3) the story is true, at least partially, and is of some benefit to the state.
Knowing China, I'm going with #3
The grift includes preparations and schemes of how to not get caught. Or, if suspected, to avoid blame, to already have constructed a web of deceit, add layers to that web. To have various fallguys, that depending on the circumstances, which to cast blame. Or, to blame diverse figures and let them fight it out. To put yourself in the background, to buy time to sneak away. Oh, the many ways to practice deceit knows no bounds.
As has been said, greed is universal.
The answer begins and ends with, we are of a sinful nature in a fallen world. The proof is all around.
My take: Iran has at least 1 perhaps 2 thermonuclear weapons, and have pledged to destroy most of the Middle East, if the US military continues to attack. Thus, the ridiculous MOU.
And, we know it, and Israel knows it. That is why the Israelis are in panic mode. These fanatics may not be able to nuke the US or Europe but, nuke themselves and the Saudis. Well, we all go back to burning wood for heat.
Bear in Indy
Trump made a mistake and stated that Iran has 5 nuclear weapons. I suspect that the weapons are rev zero like Fat Man weighing ten tons each. Very difficult to deliver. But this is why Israel is frenetic and desperate to destroy Iran.
I find this story highly doubtful. The death penalty is handed out swiftly and without hesitation in China (see for eg the case of the company owners who put melamine powder in their infant formula).
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