TIL that China buys 80%+ of Iran’s oil exports, which really surprised me.
I’m not sure why it surprised me so much; maybe I just get put off when I see such a deep reliance from one country to another.
Then I started digging into it and found some other interesting numbers:
- Chinese oil purchases make up ~45% of Iran’s entire government budget
- China pledged to invest $400B in Iran over 25 years in exchange for a 12-18% discount on oil
- ~30% of everything Iran buys comes from China
All this reminded me of reading 2034 a few years ago (good book – highly recommend). It tries to paint a “realistic” picture of how a “Third World War” could start and how it would look. In the book, the China-Iran connection plays a big role. I’m still skeptical of the book, but it was at least interesting getting some more details behind how tight the relationship is and how it could come into play down the line.
I don’t know nearly enough about global politics (outside of a few specific areas) to have any takes – I’m just having fun learning about it.
(Source: originally Perplexity, but confirmed most details at Reuters and USCC)