Gillian Tett

and be trying to stockpile everything in a way that we saw last year in COVID.

We definitely saw it with tariffs.

That was more in the case of individual companies, though, trying to engage in hoarding.

What you're likely to see going forward is a debate in many countries, including Europe as well, about what kind of national strategic reserves they need to protect themselves.

And it's the same national version of what households were doing during COVID with toilet rolls.

You know, you start to panic, you go and buy up everything you can find.

Suddenly the shelves are empty, the prices go up, and that engenders more panic.

So hoarding is never a particularly good thing for economic growth, but it seems pretty much inevitable now.

Well, in terms of China, it's emerging as one of the winners of the current fight in the Middle East because it's been sitting there very quietly looking at America essentially suffer what's in many ways a strategic defeat in the Middle East, expend a lot of its military without much to actually show for it at the moment and suffer real damage.

And of course, Europe is suffering on the back of the energy squeeze.

And China is quietly sitting there.

And yes, it also has been hit by a reduction in its oil imports, but it has very big reserves of fossil fuels.

And it's also very widely diversified heavily into renewables in the last few years.

So in some ways, it's better protected.

China's also been sitting there watching.

to see how military equipment is or is not being battle tested and playing out on the battlefield.

And one thing about China is that its own armies haven't fought a war for a very, very long time.

It's very keen to see what kind of military innovations are working or not.

It's one of the reasons why it's been quietly involved and watching Russia as well in Ukraine.

So in many ways, China is one of the winners.