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question: When does all this hit the fan? Been reading for months that gas will rise to astronomical prices. When? answer: it depends heavily on China. If China

question: When does all this hit the fan? Been reading for months that gas will rise to astronomical prices. When? answer: it depends heavily on China. If China were to jump into the global oil market with both feet, prices would shoot upwards. To date they have largely stayed on the sidelines.They have huge amounts of oil in storage. Their behavior so far has been the big surprise. They have been providing a pressure relief valve for the entire globe.

cyanydeez 2mo ago
when the rich people stop talking to their LLMs and realize their hand servants have access to guns.
- krapp 2mo ago
  They know that. And they know that Americans won't do a damn thing with those guns except shoot one another.
- pamircake 2mo ago
  [dead]
fragmede 2mo ago
I wouldn't call what they're doing "staying on the sidelines". It's a very big thing they're doing to stop global oil prices from shooting up by using up their stockpile for as long as they can. As to why, it's just the... I dunno, Chinese? thing to do. Quietly fix someone else's fuckup and not seek glory. Whatever you want to attribute it to, it's an ethos and makes total sense to some, because things are gonna get fuuuuuucked if gas prices go to the moon.
- toomuchtodo 2mo ago
  China’s economy depends on exporting to the world, as it will never have enough domestic demand to meet domestic supply. If the global economy crashes from an oil price shock, China goes down with it.
  - fragmede 2mo ago
    Power is better than money though. China is communist in name only now, but they could extract huge concessions out of the rest of the world right now if they wanted to.
    - toomuchtodo 2mo ago
      They could, but they’ll wait, they’re not ready yet. Until then, they’ll continue to electrify their economy, build out domestic energy supply, rebuild their oil inventories from Russia and Iran when able (at below market prices, dominated in yuan, avoiding dollar systems and sanctions) and prepare to take Taiwan as the US continues to weaken itself. If Taiwan toasts TSMC when that happens, well, that’s part of what China is rapidly building out their domestic chip industry. China will then have a monopoly on that chip production besides what can be produced in the US and Europe, and have achieved reunification. And who is going to stop them? Nobody, based on the evidence and current trajectories.
      - DivingForGold 2mo ago
        >If Taiwan toasts TSMC when that happens ... You can bet that all TSMC chip factories in Taiwan have strategic installs of explosives just for this scenario, China will get nothing, and the US has multiple TSMC chip factories now and will gladly accept Taiwan victims.
        toomuchtodo 2mo ago
        As mentioned, they won’t need the fabs. They’re spending tens of billions of dollars to advance their own vertical chip industry. The US just pulled temporary status from hundreds of thousands of Hatians, so I wouldn’t be so confident what the future looks like for Taiwanese refugees in the US. TLDR China is going to build whatever chip technology they need to accomplish their technology and geopolitical goals. They have the resources, the will, and the time. China’s EUV Lithography Progress: Parsing Signal From Noise - https://thediplomat.com/2026/07/chinas-euv-lithography-progress-parsing-signal-from-noise/ https://thediplomat.com/2026/07/chinas-euv-lithography-progr... - July 2nd, 2026 China begins mass production of homegrown DUV chipmaking tools - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49076684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49076684 - July 2026 China Tells Telecom Carriers to Phase Out Foreign Chips by 2027 (2024) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48767466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48767466 - July 2026 US tells ASML it is concerned China may have top chip tool - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48602369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48602369 - June 2026
- aprilthird2021 2mo ago
  It is to their benefit in several ways: They can use this ability to keep oil prices down to sort of back up their strategic goals. They could block a strait themselves while taking Taiwan. They could open the stores for concessions in other ways. They can also use this current Iran War to study how the US handles economic problems like oil-inflation. By having their finger on the scale they can push and pull and see how the US reacts in a war scenario.
- acdha 2mo ago
  China isn’t trying to crash the global economy but they’re letting prices rise to the point that their EV, solar, and battery companies are seeing huge demand. They don’t want a depression, just acceleration of that trend.
aaron695 2mo ago
[dead]

cyanydeez 2mo ago

when the rich people stop talking to their LLMs and realize their hand servants have access to guns.

krapp 2mo ago
They know that. And they know that Americans won't do a damn thing with those guns except shoot one another.
pamircake 2mo ago
[dead]

fragmede 2mo ago

I wouldn't call what they're doing "staying on the sidelines". It's a very big thing they're doing to stop global oil prices from shooting up by using up their stockpile for as long as they can. As to why, it's just the... I dunno, Chinese? thing to do. Quietly fix someone else's fuckup and not seek glory. Whatever you want to attribute it to, it's an ethos and makes total sense to some, because things are gonna get fuuuuuucked if gas prices go to the moon.

toomuchtodo 2mo ago
China’s economy depends on exporting to the world, as it will never have enough domestic demand to meet domestic supply. If the global economy crashes from an oil price shock, China goes down with it.
- fragmede 2mo ago
  Power is better than money though. China is communist in name only now, but they could extract huge concessions out of the rest of the world right now if they wanted to.
  - toomuchtodo 2mo ago
    They could, but they’ll wait, they’re not ready yet. Until then, they’ll continue to electrify their economy, build out domestic energy supply, rebuild their oil inventories from Russia and Iran when able (at below market prices, dominated in yuan, avoiding dollar systems and sanctions) and prepare to take Taiwan as the US continues to weaken itself. If Taiwan toasts TSMC when that happens, well, that’s part of what China is rapidly building out their domestic chip industry. China will then have a monopoly on that chip production besides what can be produced in the US and Europe, and have achieved reunification. And who is going to stop them? Nobody, based on the evidence and current trajectories.
    - DivingForGold 2mo ago
      >If Taiwan toasts TSMC when that happens ... You can bet that all TSMC chip factories in Taiwan have strategic installs of explosives just for this scenario, China will get nothing, and the US has multiple TSMC chip factories now and will gladly accept Taiwan victims.
      - toomuchtodo 2mo ago
        As mentioned, they won’t need the fabs. They’re spending tens of billions of dollars to advance their own vertical chip industry. The US just pulled temporary status from hundreds of thousands of Hatians, so I wouldn’t be so confident what the future looks like for Taiwanese refugees in the US. TLDR China is going to build whatever chip technology they need to accomplish their technology and geopolitical goals. They have the resources, the will, and the time. China’s EUV Lithography Progress: Parsing Signal From Noise - https://thediplomat.com/2026/07/chinas-euv-lithography-progress-parsing-signal-from-noise/ https://thediplomat.com/2026/07/chinas-euv-lithography-progr... - July 2nd, 2026 China begins mass production of homegrown DUV chipmaking tools - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49076684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49076684 - July 2026 China Tells Telecom Carriers to Phase Out Foreign Chips by 2027 (2024) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48767466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48767466 - July 2026 US tells ASML it is concerned China may have top chip tool - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48602369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48602369 - June 2026
aprilthird2021 2mo ago
It is to their benefit in several ways: They can use this ability to keep oil prices down to sort of back up their strategic goals. They could block a strait themselves while taking Taiwan. They could open the stores for concessions in other ways. They can also use this current Iran War to study how the US handles economic problems like oil-inflation. By having their finger on the scale they can push and pull and see how the US reacts in a war scenario.
acdha 2mo ago
China isn’t trying to crash the global economy but they’re letting prices rise to the point that their EV, solar, and battery companies are seeing huge demand. They don’t want a depression, just acceleration of that trend.

aaron695 2mo ago

[dead]