Hidden within the bone dry ledgers of China’s international trade reports, an apparent anomaly revealed itself in late 2022. Analysts examining the movement of oil around the world located an extraordinary imbalance in the country’s accounts; a bland aberration that helped to reveal the risky game being played by the US and its allies to maintain a high supply of oil around the world.
It was November 2022 and Chinese imports of Malaysian oil had reached a record high of more than one million barrels a day. The problem? Malaysia’s total national oil production was just 521,000 barrels a day, almost half of the amount China claimed it was importing.
