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Per day, China currently consumes 15M barrels of oil. It produces 4M domestically and can probably import 2M via relatively safe overland routes from Russia. It has at least 700M in state and private reserves. Under a blockade, most of its industry would be idle, and the government would institute rationing; call that a 40% cut in consumption. So it probably has around 350 days before it draws down the reserves. At that point, it would be forced to go from a 40% cut to a 60% cut, though probably it would dynamically adjust its rationing target up as the war dragged on. If China could end the war within a couple months (more pertinently, if it believed it could), it would believe it had secured enough oil to win.
Although China would undoubtedly be in really bad economic shape, so would the rest of the world, including the US and particularly its allies in the region. China is not Cuba, because a fifth of the economy was never reliant on Cuba. The question is which domestic political system would better be able to handle mass unemployment and economic depression. How many people in the US would be willing to sacrifice years of prosperity for Taiwan, especially if China was focused entirely on just controlling trade and not landing soldiers on the land or bombing cities?
I doubt a war would drag on for 350 days. If China learned anything from Russia's blunders in Ukraine then it's surely that it's a better bet to overcommit. While they are reliant on oil, the world is reliant on Chinese supply-chains. A blockade of China would instantly cause a catastrophic depression in the West and likely hyperinflation.
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A 40% cut in oil consumption is a pretty big ask for a country that didn't even have the state capacity for e.g. masking rules like Hong Kong's, and which folded at the first major sign of public anger over zero covid.
Remember the CCP's deal with the Chinese people: prosperity and a quiet life in return for compliance. The CCP is genuinely popular, in my experience, because of this deal. What happens if the CCP can't fill its part of that deal?
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