How provocative would the Russians consider an unexpected interruption in their export pipeline flow to China and India? Is there alternate delivery means redundancy for the Russians to get most of it to China and India by shadow fleet tankers instead? That it, if their pipelines kept going offline indefinitely? Is this am act of war? How about sinking their shadow fleet?
How deep down the rabbit hole here do we want to go?
China gets a few mbpd from Iran or KSA. The ports are there for ships. China certainly has some oil tankers that are outright flagged Chinese and could escort them.
But where you are really going is a desire to somehow bomb the pipelines going from Russia to China. That would be something you would do if you are at war with both nations. I can’t see how it happens before any war with them exists.
Bottom line — China’s consumption growth is undeniable and Russia’s 7.4 mbpd of export can feed it. They just won’t care about sanctions. It’s all PR.