Since 2003, oil demand in China has gone up an average of 7.3 percent a year, said P.F. Yan, a China-based analyst with energy consulting firm HIS CERA.

China's oil imports reached 5.38 million barrels a day last year - or 57.3 percent of demand, Yan said. In the United States, net imports last year were 8.43 million barrels a day - 45 percent of demand.

There were 15 million cars in China in 2000. By last year, there were 80 million, said Catherina Wijaya, a senior energy technologist based in China with General Motors Corp.

China has surpassed the United States as the largest auto sales market. Traffic jams are so bad in cities like Beijing that the government has restricted new car sales. In 2010, more than 800,000 new cars hit the streets in Beijing. Last year, the government said sales could not exceed 200,000, and only 180,000 were sold.

The central government set a goal for alternative fuel vehicle sales of 750,000 last year, but actual sales of electric cars, hybrids and natural gas vehicles came to only 8,000, said Yan.

China's government isn't expecting gasoline and diesel consumption to peak until 2030.