Why is Xi Jinping building commodity stockpiles?

IMHO, stockpiles are good policy since they build resilience. If China's doing this but not the West, it's a display of some of the advantages of their governance model (not to say that it doesn't have disadvantages, too). The US especially seems to be infected by short-term, happy-path thinking that's eager and willing to risk the future for a little bit of savings today.

They have mountains of dollars which could suddenly be frozen like Russia's dollars were.

Much better to exchange them for something useful.

A part of it is probably just great prices on Russian oil

Xi the grab hag https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/grab_hag

I couldn't read whether those additional 16% last year (after a pandemic and the unexpected 3-day SMO by Ruzzia in 2022) are just a fluke or way above the e.g 2014-2019 average. Also, how much of those 16% are cheap Ruzzia oil? The drop this year could be explained with Ukraine's successful campaign on Ruzzia's refineries and export bans on some oil products that already have been extended beyond the harvest season. Are we sure China is intentionally building up stockpiles or it is accidentally because it's not able to shift imported raw materials into its stuttering economy?

Just picking one commodity here: Gas of which China now has 23 days worth of storage is ridiculously small compared to the whole year that Austria has in it's storage. Other players like the US have even more natural gas stored, in it's natural habitat below earth and not in facilities that are easy targets for modern missiles.

I understand the danger of mainland China attacking the Republic of China, but it would be much more suicidal for China than Ruzzia's attack on Taiwan. Argentina is mentioned in the article, they plan to drop their own currency for the US dollar, thus no action against the will of Washington will happen.

Because commodities are cheap these days, why wait for the next commodities boom to buy when you can buy now on sale?

"Vast new holdings of grain, natural gas and oil suggest trouble ahead",The economist try to portray as if it's bad thing. you can print as much as money you want or simply generate in computer, but commodities are useful items. China is doing the right thing.

From TFA: Hedging against a potential trade war if Trump became president.

"Now Mr Trump, who makes no secret of his desire to hobble China, has a decent chance of returning to power. In a confrontation, America could restrict its own food exports to China, which have rebounded since a truce of sorts was reached, and lean on other big suppliers such as Argentina and Brazil to do likewise. It could try to influence countries that sell metals to China, including Australia and Chile. And most of China’s commodity imports are shipped through a few straits and canals that America could seek to block for Chinese vessels by, say, posting military ships nearby.

...

For now, the evidence suggests that hoarding is more likely to be a defensive measure, since it is not yet on a scale to be secure in a hot conflict"

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Also, lots of people forget that Chinese who grew up in the 1990s tend to be fairly anti-American due to the Tiannamen Sanctions, the Taiwan Straits Crisis, and the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade along with the Collapse of the USSR and the Gulf War (the Iraqi Army used the same doctrine and weaponry as the PLA in the 1990s).

There is a massive culture gap between Chinese and American leadership, and it has the potential of spiraling into conflict if diplomacy and openness in the relationship isn't managed.

Both sides think the other is out to get them.