Eggs in One Basket
Asia Times Online :: China Business News - China aims to diversify oil sources
What has worried Chinese oil-security strategists in recent years is that most of the imported oil comes from the Middle East. Despite China's efforts to diversify sources of imports, it still relies heavily on Middle Eastern oil. In 2005, China's imports of crude oil from the Middle East accounted for 61.1% of its total crude-oil imports, making it the most import link in the country's oil-supply chain.
This amounts to putting most, if not all, the eggs in one basket, which is too fraught with risks for such a big country like China, analysts in Beijing say. If the supply of oil from the Middle East were interrupted, for any reason, the outcome for China would be disastrous beyond imagination.
