Yet again, a command economy is derailed by human greed

 

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