SINGAPORE — As the price of oil has surged ever higher in recent weeks, Asian countries that subsidize energy prices have been hit hard. India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Taiwan have been forced to raise fuel prices by cutting their subsidies, despite concerns about stoking inflation, public discontent and political instability.

Will China, which in 2002 surpassed Japan as the world's second-largest oil-consuming nation after the United States, follow? The answer is of global significance. The government in Tokyo will be keen to know because it will affect the high prices of gasoline, diesel and other refined oil products in Japan, where fuel prices are not subsidized.

If Asia's two emerging economic giants, China and India, keep guzzling oil at current rates, the International Energy Agency reckons their net oil imports will almost quadruple to 19.1 million barrels a day by 2030, more than the combined imports of the United States and Japan today. By then, China would be the biggest oil user.