Why is Xi Jinping building secret commodity stockpiles?
习近平为何要建立秘密商品库存？

Over the past two decades China has devoured enormous amounts of raw materials. Its population has grown bigger and richer, requiring more dairy, grain and meat. Its giant industries have been ravenous for energy and metals. In recent years, though, the economy has suffered from political mismanagement and a property crisis. Chinese officials are adamant that they want to shift away from resource-intensive industries. Logic dictates that the country’s appetite for commodities should be shrinking, and shrinking fast.
过去二十年来，中国消耗了大量原材料。它的人口越来越多、越来越富裕，需要更多的乳制品、谷物和肉类。它的庞大工业对能源和金属有着巨大的需求。然而，近年来，经济遭受政治管理不善和房地产危机的困扰。中国官员坚定地表示他们希望从资源密集型产业转向。从逻辑上讲，该国对大宗商品的需求应该正在萎缩，而且正在迅速萎缩。

In reality, the opposite is happening. Last year China’s imports of many basic resources broke records, and imports of all types of commodities surged by 16% in volume terms. They are still rising, up by 6% in the first five months of this year. Given the country’s economic struggles, that does not reflect growing consumption. Instead, China appears to be stockpiling materials at a rapid pace—and at a time when commodities are expensive. Policymakers in Beijing seem to be worried about new geopolitical threats, not least that a new, hawkish American president could try to choke crucial supply routes to China.
事实上，情况恰恰相反。去年，中国多项基础资源进口量破纪录，各类大宗商品进口量猛增16%。它们仍在上涨，今年前五个月上涨了 6%。考虑到该国的经济困境，这并不反映消费的增长。相反，中国似乎正在快速储备材料——而且是在大宗商品价格昂贵的时候。北京的政策制定者似乎担心新的地缘政治威胁，尤其是一位新的鹰派美国总统可能试图堵塞通往中国的重要供应路线。

The fear is warranted, for China depends on foreign resources. Although it is the world’s refining centre for many metals, it imports much of the raw material required, ranging from 70% of the bauxite it uses to 97% of cobalt. China keeps the lights on only with imported energy. It has a lot of coal, but its deposits of other fuels do not match its needs, forcing it to bring in 40% of its natural gas and 70% of its crude oil. China’s dependence is most acute for food. In 2000 almost everything citizens ate was produced at home; today less than two-thirds is. The country imports 85% of the 125m tonnes a year of soya beans it uses to feed its 400m pigs. Its reliance on foreign farmers is near total for coffee, palm oil and some dairy products.
这种担心是有道理的，因为中国依赖外国资源。尽管它是世界上许多金属的精炼中心，但其所需的大部分原材料都是进口的，从其使用的 70% 的铝土矿到 97% 的钴，不一而足。中国仅靠进口能源维持供电。它拥有大量煤炭，但其他燃料储量无法满足其需求，迫使其进口 40% 的天然气和 70% 的原油。中国对粮食的依赖最为严重。 2000年，几乎所有公民吃的东西都是在家里生产的；今天不到三分之二。该国每年用于喂养 4 亿头猪的 1.25 亿吨大豆中，85% 需要进口。它的咖啡、棕榈油和一些乳制品几乎完全依赖外国农民。

Aware of this vulnerability, China started building “strategic” stockpiles of grain and defence-related minerals at the end of the cold war, which it then added to at the peak of its economic boom with petroleum and industrial metals. Three recent events have prompted more stockpiling. In 2018 President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese exports worth $60bn a year, forcing China to retaliate by slapping duties on American soya beans. Next came covid-19, which disrupted supply chains and raised the cost of materials. War in Ukraine then inflated prices and showed America’s will to use embargoes.
意识到这一脆弱性，中国在冷战结束时开始建立粮食和国防相关矿产的“战略”库存，然后在经济繁荣的顶峰时期又增加了石油和工业金属的库存。最近发生的三起事件促使人们增加库存。 2018年，唐纳德·特朗普总统对每年价值600亿美元的中国出口产品征收关税，迫使中国对美国大豆征收关税进行报复。接下来是新冠肺炎 (covid-19)，它扰乱了供应链并提高了材料成本。乌克兰战争随后导致物价上涨，并显示出美国使用禁运的意愿。

Now Mr Trump, who makes no secret of his desire to hobble China, has a decent chance of returning to power. In a confrontation, America could restrict its own food exports to China, which have rebounded since a truce of sorts was reached, and lean on other big suppliers such as Argentina and Brazil to do likewise. It could try to influence countries that sell metals to China, including Australia and Chile. And most of China’s commodity imports are shipped through a few straits and canals that America could seek to block for Chinese vessels by, say, posting military ships nearby.
现在，特朗普毫不掩饰自己想要阻碍中国的愿望，他有很大机会重新掌权。在对抗中，美国可以限制自己对中国的粮食出口（自达成某种休战协议以来，中国的粮食出口已经反弹），并依靠阿根廷和巴西等其他主要供应国也这样做。它可能会试图影响向中国出售金属的国家，包括澳大利亚和智利。中国的大部分进口商品都是通过一些海峡和运河运输的，美国可以通过在附近部署军舰等方式来封锁中国船只。

China seems to be readying itself for a more hostile environment. Its preparations start with scaling up storage infrastructure. By contrast with America, where strategic reserves are state-controlled, in China they also take the form of private tanks, silos and warehouses, which officials in Beijing have access to in times of crisis.
中国似乎正在为更加恶劣的环境做好准备。其准备工作从扩大存储基础设施开始。与美国的战略储备由国家控制不同，中国的战略储备也采取私人储罐、筒仓和仓库的形式，北京官员可以在危机时期使用这些储备。

Since 2020 China’s crude-storage capacity has increased from 1.7bn to 2bn barrels. The location of many such sites is secret, but satellite imagery suggests that known ones have grown fast since 2022, says Emma Li of Vortexa, a data firm. Similarly, the capacity of underground gas caves grew six-fold between 2010 and 2020, to 15bn cubic metres (bcm); the target is to reach 55bcm by next year. China is also building a dozen or so tanks to hold liquefied gas along its coast. JPMorgan Chase, a bank, forecasts that total gas-storage capacity will hit 85bcm by 2030.
2020年以来，中国的原油储存能力已从17亿桶增加到20亿桶。数据公司 Vortexa 的艾玛·李 (Emma Li) 表示，许多此类站点的位置都是秘密的，但卫星图像表明，自 2022 年以来，已知站点的位置迅速增长。同样，地下气洞的容量在 2010 年至 2020 年间增长了六倍，达到 150 亿立方米 (bcm)；目标是明年达到55bcm。中国还在沿海建造了十几个储罐来储存液化天然气。摩根大通银行预测，到 2030 年，天然气储存总容量将达到 85bcm。

China is now filling these facilities. In another sign of increasing caginess, state statisticians have stopped releasing data for stocks of many commodities. Yet there are ways to gauge the degree of concern. America’s Department of Agriculture forecasts that, by the end of the current growing season, China’s wheat and maize stocks will represent 51% and 67% of the world’s, respectively, up five to ten percentage points from 2018. These are thought to be enough to cover at least a year’s demand. Stocks of soya beans, China’s biggest farming import, have doubled since 2018, to 39m tonnes, and are projected to hit 42m tonnes by the end of the season.
中国现在正在填补这些设施。另一个日益谨慎的迹象是，国家统计人员已停止发布许多商品的库存数据。然而，有一些方法可以衡量担忧的程度。美国农业部预测，到当前生长季节结束时，中国小麦和玉米库存将分别占全球的51%和67%，比2018年增加5至10个百分点。这些被认为足以至少满足一年的需求。大豆是中国最大的农产品进口品种，其库存自 2018 年以来翻了一番，达到 3900 万吨，预计到本季结束时将达到 4200 万吨。

More striking still has been China’s effort to stash metals and fuel. By estimating the amounts of copper, nickel and various other metals that China could have consumed and comparing it with supply, Tom Price of Panmure Liberum, a bank, finds that the country’s inventory build-up since 2018 has been sufficient to cover at least 35% to 133% of its annual demand, depending on the commodity. By the end of spring China also had 25bcm of gas in storage, enough to meet 23 days of consumption, and up from 15 days’ worth five years ago. Parsley Ong of JPMorgan expects that this cover will reach 28 days by 2030.
更引人注目的是中国储藏金属和燃料的努力。通过估算中国可能消耗的铜、镍和各种其他金属的数量并将其与供应量进行比较，Panmure Liberum 银行的 Tom Price 发现，中国自 2018 年以来积累的库存足以覆盖至少 35其年需求量的 % 至 133%，具体取决于商品。到春季末，中国的天然气储存量也达到了 25 立方厘米，足以满足 23 天的消耗，而五年前仅为 15 天。摩根大通的 Parsley Ong 预计，到 2030 年，这一保障期将达到 28 天。

Crude stocks, meanwhile, have risen by 900,000 barrels a day (b/d) since the start of the year, estimates Rapidan Energy, a consultancy. At 1.5m b/d, the filling rate was fastest in June, suggesting that it is accelerating. This has helped China’s inventory near 1.3bn barrels, enough to cover 115 days of imports (America holds 800m barrels). On top of this, China has told oil firms to add 60m to stockpiles by the end of March. Rapidan thinks reserves will grow even faster, with China adding as many as 700m barrels by the end of 2025.
与此同时，据咨询公司 Rapidan Energy 估计，自今年年初以来，原油库存每天增加 90 万桶。 6 月份的填充速度最快，为 150 万桶/天，表明其正在加速。这使得中国的库存接近13亿桶，足以满足115天的进口量（美国持有8亿桶）。除此之外，中国还要求石油公司在 3 月底之前增加 6000 万吨库存。 Rapidan 认为储量增长将会更快，到 2025 年底中国将增加多达 7 亿桶。

This stockpiling is worrying Americans, and not just because it could fuel inflation by raising commodity prices. The supplies China is after are those it would need to survive a conflict, perhaps as it blockades Taiwan. “When you juxtapose that against China’s military build-up, it starts to be very concerning,” says Gabriel Collins, a former analyst at America’s defence department. For now, the evidence suggests that hoarding is more likely to be a defensive measure, since it is not yet on a scale to be secure in a hot conflict. American officials should watch closely for the moment that starts to change. ■
这种库存让美国人感到担忧，不仅仅是因为它可能通过提高大宗商品价格来加剧通货膨胀。中国寻求的物资是在冲突中生存所需的物资，也许是因为它封锁了台湾。美国国防部前分析师加布里埃尔·柯林斯表示：“当你将这一点与中国的军力建设相比较时，就会开始非常令人担忧。”目前，证据表明囤积更有可能是一种防御措施，因为它尚未达到在激烈冲突中安全的规模。美国官员应该密切关注开始发生变化的时刻。 ■

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