Six months into the U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran, the catastrophic oil price spikes that analysts feared have not arrived — and the restraint owes much to a quiet strategic decision made years ago in Beijing. China's vast petroleum reserve, built as a hedge against exactly this kind of geopolitical shock, allowed the world's largest crude importer to step back from global markets precisely when demand pressure could have been most damaging. The buffer is real but finite, and as new disruptions ripple through the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, the question is no