Lines of cars clogged streets near gas stations across Beijing last week as drivers scrambled to fill up their tanks before an announced price hike. Electric scooters and bicycles weaved around the idle vehicles. “Everyone’s impacted by the increase,” sighed one fuel attendant in the red-and-blue uniform of China Sinopec, a large state-run oil and gas company, as she helped a customer fill up on Monday. She pointed to the lit-up digital pump showing the new price: about $4.90 a gallon, an increase of roughly 50 cents. Overall, China is well positioned to buffer its consumers and economy from the oil shock sparked by the Iran war, despite its heavy dependency on imported oil. To be sure, if the war drags on and leads to a global recession, China’s growth, which depends heavily on exports, would take a serious hit. Why We Wrote This Asia has been hit hard by the oil shock caused by the Iran war.…