The strait that matters more than Hormuz
Iran has set a dangerous precedent.
Air Force One touched down in Beijing on Wednesday evening carrying US President Donald Trump.
The Strait of Hormuz is closed, the price of petrol (when it is available) is soaring, and every supply chain professional in the country is earning their keep. Fair enough. But if the Hormuz schism is keeping you up at night, the Taiwan Strait should be giving you nightmares.
Iran is a reminder that disruption rarely arrives as a clean break. It comes through friction: insurance repriced, ships hesitating, routes quietly narrowing. Trade does not stop but becomes unreliable, and pricey. And once reliability goes, behaviour shifts. Australia is already experiencing patchy fuel shortages caused by panic buying rather than actual import reductions.
A Taiwan conflict would apply that same mechanism at a vastly larger scale. The real danger would not be Beijing's first move, but what follows: a US intervention that turns some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world into a war zone, freezing commercial traffic across the Western Pacific.
