China has become the world’s largest oil importer, and despite establishing the largely successful yuan-denominated oil futures, Beijing will have to grapple with an overlooked geopolitical and economic consequence as it seeks to quench its thirst for oil and gas. As China relies more on both foreign crude oil imports and imported gas in the form of LNG and piped gas from neighboring countries, the outflow of petro-dollars or in this case petro-yuan will see the country contend with the decades-long dilemma that the U.S. faced; a massive transfer of capital to foreign oil producers. Worse yet, for the U.S. at the time of its foreign oil import dependence, the transfer of funds was often to less-than-friendly Middle Eastern oil producers, including Saudi Arabia who in the 1970s and 80s could arguably have been called a quasi-friend or at least an ally of convenience. The U.S. needed Saudi oil […]