When Xi Jinping secured his third five-year term as China’s leader in late 2022, he started warning senior cadres to prepare for the “stormy seas” and “worst-case scenarios” that lay ahead for the nation of 1.4bn people.
Billions of dollars of state spending later, China has built up what experts believe are some of the world’s biggest stockpiles of oil and other vital commodities. And now a Middle East conflict that is choking one of its most important trade routes is setting Beijing the biggest test yet of its preparedness for resource supply shocks.