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by vkou 99 days ago
> China benefits here - they import Russian crude oil over land,

No, they don't. 54% of their oil comes from the middle east. Only 20% comes from Russia.

China does have a healthy oil reserve at the moment, so this may be marginally less bad for them. And yes, their electricity comes from renewables, but like in any other country, all of their logistics run on diesel.

By starting this war, the United States, unsatisfied with flipping the table on bilateral trade with other countries just flipped the table on multipolar international trade. What a time to be alive.

1 comments

Most of their trains are electric, and 50% of semi tractors sold in 2025 were electric. Lots of their logistics run without diesel.
But at least for now, their fret trains have limited reach. They have a big country, with sparse population once you leave the coastal areas. I think this will help them push their railroad infrastructure though.
It's not a sparse population until you're significantly further inland than Chengdu. A billion people are living in an area that's roughly comparable to west-of-missippi USA. It's cities and high-density farmland, nothing else. If there's a few square meters of unoccupied space, somebody planted vegetables there.
75% of track is electrified.