Oil has skyrocketed again. Brent has crossed 90 dollars, WTI is around 87, and the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 20% of the world’s oil transits, has reduced its traffic from 138 ships a day to just two.
The most interesting thing here is not the price of crude oil but who wins when that happens.
Why is it important. Each shock oil is, for China, a free advertisement on a planetary scale of its energy value proposition. Solar panels, electric cars and batteries do not rise in price when there is a war in the Persian Gulf. Natural gas and gasoline, yes.
For countries that have been buying Chinese clean technology for years, this week has been the practical demonstration that they got it right. For those who have not yet done so, it is the best sales argument that China could wish for, and on top of that it has not involved a direct expense.
The contrast. The US economy is structurally more vulnerable to the shocks of oil than China. The oil intensity of US GDP, that is, how much oil is needed to generate each dollar of economic activity, is notably higher than that of China, the EU or Russia.
When crude oil soars, the blow is felt harder by the American consumer, who fills the tank of his car with gasoline, than by the Chinese consumer, whose fleet of vehicles is already almost 50% electric in new sales.
- In November 2025, electric cars They exceeded 60% of total sales in China.
- It is not a country in energy transition: it is a country that has already changed fuel in its largest vehicle fleet.
- And that is without counting the traffic of motorcycles, all electric for many years in several of its large cities, and with much greater volume than in other countries.
Between the lines. China produces more than twice as many solar panels as the world is capable of absorbingand its batteries and electric cars are already reaching Western Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. When oil rises, the economic equation for those exports improves automatically, without your government having to lift a finger.
An energy crisis in the Gulf acts as an indirect subsidy to its clean industries: it makes everything China sells more attractive and everything it doesn’t sell more expensive.
In figures. The clean energy sector already represents 11.4% of Chinese GDP, according to The analysis published by Carbon Brief last month. Without those industries, China would have grown 3.5% in 2025 instead of the 5% recorded.
Electric cars and batteries explain 44% of the economic impact of that sector. China installed 315 GW of solar and 119 GW of wind in 2025, more than the rest of the world combined in both categories.
Yes, but. China also imports oil, a lot. It remains one of the world’s largest buyers of crude oil, and the conflict over the Strait of Hormuz complicates its short-term supply. In fact, in recent weeks China has increased its oil imports by almost 16% due to uncertainty. That said, In September it already began to make an unusual collection.
What changes the long-term equation is not that China is immune to the shocks oil producers, but each crisis accelerates the internal conversion towards renewables and reinforces the export argument against third countries. It is a temporary pain that finances a structural advantage.
- Furthermore, this scenario leaves a question in the air: whether the world, by purchasing Chinese clean technology, is ultimately exchanging an energy dependency for a technological dependency.
- In both the United States and Europe this will end up becoming a question as uncomfortable as it is inevitable.
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Featured image | Nuno Marques
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