Six months into a war that was supposed to be brief, the global economy has not buckled — not because the conflict has eased, but because China quietly built a fortress of oil over a decade and chose, for its own reasons, to open its gates. Beijing's strategic petroleum reserve, some 1.4 billion barrels accumulated under Xi Jinping's vision of energy self-reliance, has absorbed a shock that analysts feared would double crude prices worldwide. The buffer was never meant as a gift to the world, yet the world has received it nonetheless — a reminder that national self-interest and collective stab