China is officially panicking. Now that the global energy crisis has slammed China's economy, leading to the first contractionary PMI since March 2020 as a result of widespread shutdowns of factory and manufacturing, not to mention hundreds of millions of Chinese residents suffering from periodic blackouts, Bloomberg reports that China’s central government officials "ordered the country’s top state-owned energy companies to secure supplies for this winter at all costs." Translation: Beijing is no longer willing to risk social anger and going forward China will be subsidizing coil and nat gas, which will lead to ... (full story)