Dr Vanathi Sethupathi

This is one of the biggest geopolitical mysteries of the year: why did China just save the world economy? Because, make no mistake, it absolutely did. Analysts are pretty much unanimous on this: had China not dramatically - and I mean dramatically - reduced its oil imports this year, the price of crude oil would have gone through the roof and dragged the global economy down with it. For proof, read how Javier Blas from Bloomberg - widely recognized as one of the world’s top energy analysts - explains what China did to Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer on their podcast “The Long Game” (thelonggame.substack.com/p/t…). As Blas puts it, China went “from 11, 12 million barrels a day to less than 6 million barrels a day” of seaborne crude imports, and that “freed a lot of oil for other countries, particularly in Asia.” India, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia “could buy the barrels that China was not buying.” To be clear, China wasn’t the only factor - surging US exports and the IEA’s emergency release helped too - but it was by far the biggest: JPMorgan reckons China accounted for about 74% of the fall in global crude trade (fortune.com/2026/06/10/oil-p…). So it's no exaggeration to say that it is China, first and foremost, that saved the world economy this year. If you remember the early days of the Iran war, none of this is what was predicted. In fact some US think tankers, such as the (always horrendous) Zineb Riboua from the Hudson Institute, were even cheering the war as being “all about China… the opening act in the larger contest against China,” the moment the US would crack “the central pillar of a regional order that Beijing has assembled” (thefp.com/p/the-iran-strike-…). Seven months on, what actually happened is that not only did China come out of the war unscathed economically, and strengthened strategically, it also ended up shielding the world economy, America’s included, from the fallout of the very war that was supposed to be its undoing. Breaking news: if you do something that’s supposed to be a “blow” to someone else - some sort of 3D chess move to gain the upper hand - and they end up having to rescue you from the fallout, maybe it wasn’t such a brilliant strategic move after all. So how did China pull it off? And, more intriguingly, why did it choose to rescue countries, including the US, from a war that Washington’s own hawks were openly selling as a strike against China itself? And why do this when it effectively dampened Iran's leverage considerably, even though they're supposed to be China's "ally" (which, as we'll see, is false)? This is the topic of my latest article. I went very deep researching all the Chinese sources I could find on this, looking at the exact legal mechanisms, and at what officials, oil refiners and state media actually said. The answer turns out to be far stranger than I expected: no-one in Beijing actually ever ordered an import cut. China, effectively, seems to have saved the world economy incidentally, as a by-product of its own domestic policy to protect Chinese consumers. Which is the real story here: China has become so large and so important it can just rescue the world economy as a mere side effect. In fact what I discovered, hilariously, is that the Chinese were just as surprised as anyone else: it’s only weeks after Western media started crediting China with saving the world economy that Chinese media picked up the story. And even then, CCTV’s first take in July (chinanews.com.cn/gj/2026/07-…) presented it as something 外媒称 (wàiméi chēng, “foreign media claim”) 🤣 Almost like a giant suddenly waking up to its own powers. Because, that's the thing: intentions fade, consequences stay. Intentional or not, as Igor Sechin, the head of Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil company, put it (reuters.com/business/aerospa…), the consequence is that it's now China, not OPEC, who calls the shots on global energy markets. The valve of global oil pricing is now in Shandong, not in Zhongdong anymore (Zhongdong, 中东, is the Middle East in Chinese). Full article here, with how China’s 20-year strategic nightmare, the “Malacca dilemma”, has now effectively become its leverage over the rest of the world: arnaudbertrand.substack.com/…

I strongly encourage everyone to read the speech that Chan Chun Sing, Singapore's Defence Minister, just gave in Beijing: it's basically the polar opposite of a Hegseth speech - immensely wise and a refreshing proof that thoughtful statecraft still exists. You can find the speech here: mindef.gov.sg/news-and-event… Below a summary of the best parts of the speech, in my opinion. Much of the speech addresses the crucial question of the so-called "security dilemma", a key concept in international relations theory whereby one country's efforts to make itself safer almost inevitably make others feel less safe, triggering a spiral where everyone ends up more insecure. As Chan Chun Sing puts it in his speech: "The true test of statecraft is this: how do we strengthen our own security without weakening the security of others, or without aggravating the insecurity of others?" He says there are "three fundamental principles worth bearing in mind" in this regard, but that, first and foremost, it raises the question of "what 'winning' means": to him, defining "winning" as "outgunning or outlasting a rival" isn't sensible, it ought to be defined as winning others through the "power of our example", rather than "the example of our power." It's extremely wise, when you think about it: do you actually "win" if you submit others by force, or do you merely prove that, for now, they simply lack the strength to resist? You've imposed your will, yes, but the principle you've imposed is that the strongest gets his way, and strength is expensive and it wanes. Chan Chun Sing quotes Mencius, the classic Chinese philosopher, to illustrate this: "Power may compel others to comply. But in the end, it is trust that truly wins others over" (which is a trimmed version of the true original citation: "Those who subdue others by force do not win their hearts; they submit only because their own strength falls short. Those who subdue others by virtue win hearts that are glad and sincerely submissive, as the seventy disciples submitted to Confucius," 以力服人者，非心服也，力不赡也；以德服人者，中心悦而诚服也，如七十子之服孔子也。) This is very core to Chinese strategic thinking (yes, Chan Chun Sing, as are most Singaporean leaders, is ethnically Chinese): the notion that legitimacy, not force, is the real currency of power. A state that has to coerce is following the "hegemonic way" (badao, 霸道) - which is brittle and unsustainable. The only sustainable long-term way to lead is the so-called "kingly way" (wangdao, 王道), where others follow you and emulate you voluntarily. Two concepts which incidentally come from Mencius too: "he who uses force while borrowing the name of benevolence is a hegemon (ba); he who practises benevolence through virtue is a true king (wang)." Concretely, Chan Chun Sing say that states should pursue the following 3 principles to apply this in practice. First of all, he points out that too many states "externalise domestic issues" as opposed to putting their own house in order. The idea being that a leadership confident at home doesn't need foreign enemies to hold itself together, and can therefore act in its "enlightened long-term interest" abroad. Whereby an insecure one uses foreign policy "for political gain." No prizes for guessing what country he is referring to here... The second principle is that "interdependence breeds stability" as opposed to being "a source of vulnerability." Which makes sense: mutual exposure turns competitors into stakeholders in each other's stability. Cut exposure in the name of "resilience" or "de-risking" and, really, the only thing you've achieved is to make confrontation and conflict cheaper. Lastly, and this is perhaps the most important principle: "first, do no harm." Chan Chun Sing again quotes famous Chinese sayings: "turn big problems into small ones, and small ones into nothing" (大事化小，小事化了), which is what happens when there's trust between states, versus "turn small problems into big ones, and make trouble out of nothing" (小事化大，无事生非), which is what happens when there isn't. The idea is that every unnecessary provocation, every "freedom of navigation" stunt, every gratuitous sanction is a withdrawal from a trust account that is very expensive to fill and, as he says, can be emptied "in a single instant." Chan Chun Sing ends his speech on what being a “responsible major country” - a key concept in contemporary Chinese international relations - means, and how, "the more responsible major powers are, the less concerned small countries will be." Besides the above three fundamental principles, he says that "strategic patience" is also crucial, defined as: "Not every capability needs to be advertised; not every advantage needs to be immediately pressed; and not every provocation demands an immediate response." In other words, true confidence doesn't need to prove itself and restraint is a form of strength: a great power that feels compelled to respond to everything is, in effect, letting its rivals set its agenda. And whoever needs to constantly show force is in fact projecting its own fear that without the show, nobody would believe it. As Margaret Thatcher once brilliantly put it (I hate to quote her but this is too good): "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't." That's it, if you want the rest, I truly encourage you to read the full speech: pure undistilled wisdom, from a man who runs the defence of a country smaller than Los Angeles and obviously understands power far better than the man in charge of the largest military on earth. Which is its own form of tragedy.

You can say what you want about Iran but they're definitely pretty unique in their communication: never seen a country threaten another with a math equation before 😅 For those who didn't get it: there is a famous monetary policy formula used by the Fed called the "Taylor rule" that says a central bank's policy rate (i) should equal the neutral real rate (r*) plus target inflation (π*), plus 1.5 times the inflation gap and 0.5 times the output gap (the "i = r* + π* + 1.5(π−π*) + 0.5(y−y*)" part of Ghalibaf's formula). Ghalibaf adds α(SOH−SOH*) and β(BEM−BEM*): SOH referring to the Strait Of Hormuz and BEM to Bab El-Mandeb. Both have positive coefficient, meaning the more those chokepoints are choked, the higher the rate the Fed would have to set to fight the resulting inflation. In a nutshell this is Ghalibaf trolling the Fed, telling them that Iran is - in a very real way - setting American monetary policy.