资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

In 2019, markets focused on China’s slowing GDP growth and on the trade war with the US. In the meantime, bilateral relations soured, highlighting the structural nature of competition between the US and China with the Trump administration working, for example, to limit Huawei’s role in Western telecom networks. Washington’s ‘zero tolerance’ campaign on Iran included sanctions on Chinese traders and shippers just as sanctions on Venezuela further constrained China’s crude supplies. The combination of a slowing economy and an uncertain geopolitical outlook meant that markets had to contend with slowing demand growth, especially for natural gas, alongside shifting trade flows and new sanctions-related risks. Within China, concerns about import dependency prompted a focus on domestic resources and particularly on ‘clean’ coal.