They're preparing for an invasion of Taiwan, and if they do that the US will cut off their oil supply, so they need the reserves. They're betting they can take Taiwan fast enough that they can present a fait a complis, and negotiate a re-opening of trade routes before their reserves run out.

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fhdkweig a day ago | parent [-]

Thanks, I was so concerned about all the current wars, I had completely forgotten about the wars-to-be. But I had figured that Taiwan was safe after announcing the self-destructs in the chip fabs. Hope springs eternal.

	▲	simonh a day ago \| parent [-]
		I don’t see why Xi should care about the fabs, we’re more reliant on them than he is. I think his goals are more political and historic. I don’t think and invasion of Taiwan would work, especially with a committed and competent administration in the US, but nobody can take that for granted nowadays. It would be a grave error anyway IMHO, but there’s no guarantee Xi sees it that way. Hopefully the example of the grave errors made by Putin in Ukraine and Trump in Iran will persuade him that Taiwan would be far too risky.