“The relationship between Beijing and Washington carries far-reaching global consequences. Turning our backs on one another will only produce misunderstanding and miscalculation.”
By Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi
On 12 March 2026, China’s National People’s Congress approved the country’s 15th Five-Year Plan for 2026 to 2030, an economic and strategic roadmap designed to sustain China’s rise over the next five years. The plan was endorsed in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing as the American-Israeli war on Iran entered its third week, at the height of a military escalation that included strikes on ports and energy facilities across the region. The conflict coincided with severe turmoil in energy markets, a marked rise in oil prices, and mounting fears over the security of maritime routes, particularly the Strait of Hormuz.
As developments escalated further, including the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and Washington’s move to impose a blockade on Iranian ports after American-Iranian negotiations in Pakistan failed, energy markets entered a new phase of inflationary shock. Oil prices swung sharply throughout the war, with steep rises followed by temporary declines whenever de-escalation was discussed. Uncertainty over supplies and shipping through the strait remained central, especially given that 45 per cent of Chinese energy imports pass through Hormuz.
This overlap between military escalation and economic disruption has come at a politically sensitive moment for Beijing, particularly as preparations continue for an expected visit by US President Donald Trump to China in May. Chinese statements surrounding the visit have stressed the importance of avoiding confrontation with Washington and keeping communication channels open, in what Beijing describes as necessary to prevent “miscalculation” in bilateral relations.
For that reason, despite the fact that developments in Iran and the wider Middle East touch directly on vital Chinese interests, Beijing has limited its response to expressions of “grave concern” and calls to halt military operations. More significantly, it has avoided using the word “condemnation” in reference to the war itself. That word was used clearly during the twelve-day war in June 2025, when Israel alone was leading the military campaign. In the current war, China has used the term only twice: first after the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and second in reference to attacks on civilians, without identifying which party it was condemning.
“China used the word condemnation during the current war in only two cases: after the assassination of Khamenei, and when speaking about the targeting of civilians.”
This shift is not merely linguistic. It reflects precise Chinese calculations connected to the nature of the current war, the relationship with the United States, and the network of interests linking Beijing to Iran, the Gulf states, and Israel. It raises major questions about how China is reading this war and where the limits of its diplomatic involvement lie in a crisis shaped by energy, security, and international power politics.
Tehran’s Illusions Are Unravelling
Before the Russia-Ukraine war, one of the most common assumptions, heavily reinforced by Washington, was that a “China-Russia-Iran alliance” was taking shape in opposition to American dominance. Yet the course of recent events, including the latest war and the twelve-day war in June 2025, has exposed the limits of that assumption and reopened debate over the real nature of Sino-Iranian relations.
During the twelve-day war, widespread reports circulated claiming China had supplied weapons to Iran. After the war, further rumours emerged about arms deals between the two countries, a pattern repeated during the latest conflict, especially after the ceasefire. Yet at the time, China’s ambassador to Israel, Xiao Junzheng, was focused on reassuring right-wing Israeli media that the reports were nothing more than lies. He ended one interview by saying, “Israel has no reason to worry. A lie repeated a thousand times is still a lie.”
But Xiao’s reassurances to Israel Hayom, often referred to as “Bibi-ton” because of its loyalty to Netanyahu, were not simply a denial of support for Tehran. They may also have served to obscure an alleged active Chinese role in facilitating the very military whose attacks Iran was facing. A report issued by a United Nations Special Rapporteur on 20 October 2025 stated that the direction of weapons-related supplies was the exact opposite of what Beijing had implied. Between October 2023 and October 2025, 26 countries sent at least 10 shipments of weapons and ammunition, including dual-use materials, to Israel. China, including Taiwan, was classified among the most frequent suppliers.
“China was supplying Israel with military-use shipments during the same period in which it presented itself to Tehran as a friend in difficult times.”
That means China was supplying the Israeli military during the same period in which it was presenting itself to Tehran as a reliable partner. This period included the genocide in Gaza and the twelve-day war. Beijing has not officially commented on this contradiction. While the shipments were likely to have consisted of dual-use goods rather than ready-made weapons or ammunition, that does not erase the gap between rhetoric and practice. It instead raises serious questions about the nature of those shipments, the channels through which they passed, and how China reconciles such supply with its repeated claim that it is a “peace-maker” in the Middle East.
Inside Iran, by contrast, an inflated assumption prevailed before the 2025 war. It held that the Islamic Republic functioned as China’s western defensive line. If Iran fell, China would be affected. If oil were cut off, China would face problems. If Iran disappeared, China would face strategic challenges. And if America were not kept busy in this region, it would turn its full attention towards China. This perception was reinforced by the 2021 comprehensive partnership agreement extending over 25 years, which Tehran read as a quasi-alliance with Beijing. China, however, framed the agreement in general terms, stressing that it “contains no contracts or specific quantitative targets and is not directed against any third party”. Iranian officials such as former foreign minister Javad Zarif, by contrast, described it as an expression of ties with a “friend”.
Beijing helped encourage that reading through official rhetoric. Wang Yi spoke of taking the relationship to “the highest possible level”. For many elites in Tehran, China appeared to be a potential ally, a route around Western sanctions, and a strategic counterweight to the United States. That impression was strengthened by Iran’s full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and BRICS, by its geographical role in the Belt and Road Initiative, and by continued energy cooperation.
Most importantly, on 12 May 2025, China issued for the first time a white paper dedicated exclusively to national security, titled China’s National Security in the New Era. In it, the Middle East was explicitly placed within the framework of China’s national security. Beijing pledged to act as a “peace-maker”, citing its sponsorship of Saudi-Iranian rapprochement and its support for a political solution to the Palestinian issue.
“For many elites in Tehran, China looked like a potential ally, a way out of sanctions, and a counterweight to the United States.”
Yet the twelve-day war quickly shattered much of that expectation. Roughly two weeks after the Chinese ambassador’s comments in Israel, Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, deputy for political affairs in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, stated that Tehran had never requested military assistance from China. “The Islamic Republic did not ask any country for help,” he said, “not even the members of the Axis of Resistance.” Iranian researchers were even more direct. Researcher Ata Tabriz argued that the war “exposed the limits of Tehran’s partnership with Beijing”, since China offered only “general positions” on peace and stability rather than the concrete involvement Iranian officials had expected.
The reformist politician Mohsen Armin was more blunt still, saying the war had proved that “Iran is alone in the world”. Hamid Vafaei, director of the Asia Research Centre and co-director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Tehran, cited reports indicating that the Chinese themselves describe their stance as “sitting on a mountain and watching the tigers fight”. He warned that “Iran should not expect direct and complete support from China”. He added that China’s hesitation during the twelve-day war demonstrated Iran’s serious lack of a strategic bilateral relationship system.
“Our romantic view of China is the product of years of myth-making and wishful strategic thinking. It does not reflect an accurate understanding of the behaviour of a pragmatic power.”
By Ehsan Jitsaz, Iran’s Deputy Minister of Communications, and Behzad Ahmadi, adviser to the minister for international affairs
This assessment also found support among Iranian officials such as Ehsan Jitsaz and Behzad Ahmadi, both of whom hold research positions at the University of Tehran. They concluded that “China adopts a balanced approach to protect its multiple interests in the region, and it is unrealistic for Iran to expect Beijing to endanger its relations with Israel and the United States. Our romantic view of China therefore seems to be the product of years of myth-making and wishful strategic thinking, not an accurate understanding of the conduct of a pragmatic power.”
China’s Calculations and Its Reserve Option
“The one who tied the bell around the tiger’s neck should remove it.”
By Chinese President Xi Jinping, citing a popular proverb
This was Xi Jinping’s response to a request from US President Joe Biden for cooperation during the Russia-Ukraine war. The meaning was clear. Whoever created the crisis, in Xi’s view Washington and NATO’s expansion in Europe, should bear its costs. The remark captures the limits of China’s role in managing international conflict. From Ukraine to the genocide in Gaza, and through the successive Israeli escalations against Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and finally Iran, China has repeatedly shown that there are lines it will not cross in global conflicts.
In the context of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Beijing issued a position paper around two months after the war began on resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The document conveyed a clear message. China did not intend to take unilateral action to stop the war or to lead a collective effort. Instead, it restricted itself to calling on the Security Council to carry out its “primary” responsibility under the UN Charter to maintain international peace and security. During the twelve-day war, China limited itself to expressing “grave concern over the potentially severe consequences” and calling on “the international community” and “countries with influence over Israel” to work for peace, without any practical commitment beyond official statements.
This restrained diplomacy rests on a set of calculations that the current war continues to validate.
First, in its relationship with Iran, China avoids binding military alliances, with North Korea as the only exception. Beijing has therefore complied to a significant extent with Western sanctions on Tehran in order to avoid provoking Europe and the United States, while maintaining more stable economic, technological, and possibly military relations with Iran’s regional rivals. A formal defensive alliance with Tehran would jeopardise those ties, a cost Beijing has clearly sought to avoid. This also helps explain why China preferred to mediate Saudi-Iranian rapprochement rather than become involved in costlier security arrangements.
Second, Beijing has neither the desire nor the interest to slide into direct military confrontation with the United States, especially in a region far from its immediate strategic environment. That logic is reflected in Wang Yi’s warning that any confrontation between the two powers “could bring catastrophe to the world”. At the same time, the Chinese leadership knows the limits of its ability to restrain the American-Israeli alliance or to shape Iranian behaviour, which is increasingly driven by self-preservation rather than partner calculations.
Finally, as a rising power still focused on accumulating resources, China has no incentive to spend what it has built up on other people’s wars. Its strategic attention is already consumed by sovereignty issues related to Taiwan and Tibet, as well as escalating maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas. There it faces a US-led containment circle with regional allies such as India, Japan, and Australia through groupings such as the Quad and AUKUS. These pressures push Beijing to prioritise the security of its borders and immediate surroundings above distant conflicts, leaving the Middle East as a secondary theatre in which it cannot afford to spend limited military or political capital.
“What distinguishes China is that it always keeps a reserve plan in nearly every international conflict, turning to it when the balance of power changes.”
Even so, China is marked by its habit of maintaining a reserve option in almost every international conflict. In recent years, it has shown considerable ability to adapt to new power structures created by American intervention, in line with the maxim attributed to Deng Xiaoping that the colour of the cat does not matter. This was visible in its rapid engagement with Syria’s new government only weeks after the collapse of the former friendly regime. It was also visible in Venezuela, where China first condemned the arrest of Nicolas Maduro, then later continued oil trade through channels approved by the United States after Trump reassured Beijing that it was “welcome to make a big deal on oil”. Washington itself described the sale of Venezuelan oil to China as “legal” so long as it occurred through “legitimate commercial deals”.
This pattern suggests that China is prepared to adapt to different scenarios in Tehran. For decades, Western sanctions have constrained Chinese energy investment and infrastructure projects in Iran, making every form of economic involvement costly because of exposure to secondary US sanctions. A regime change, or an agreement that led to sanctions being lifted or restructured, even if it produced a government more aligned with the West, could serve China’s long-term economic interests better than the current arrangement. It would open the door to energy and infrastructure development with far fewer risks than those that exist today, much as has happened in Venezuela.
Is China Losing?
On that basis, the consequences of China’s approach to the war can be examined across three main areas, all of which suggest that Beijing emerges weakened.
First, at the level of international image, the current war is eroding the standing of both Washington and Beijing. China’s approach sends a negative message: that it lacks either the ability or the will to confront wars led by the United States, or to engage meaningfully in resolving international crises.
Engagement does not necessarily mean military intervention. But Beijing’s refusal to use available diplomatic or economic pressure to support its declared positions casts doubt on its claim to be a “peace-maker”. A credible security actor must possess tools to shape outcomes and be willing to use them when necessary.
“Beijing presented itself as a more responsible alternative to Washington, which raised expectations across the region. But China itself has never really matched those expectations.”
This sends a broader message that China is not a reliable partner in moments of crisis. For years, Beijing relied on the narrative of American bullying to present itself as a more responsible alternative. That narrative raised expectations among many states in the region. But its avoidance of tangible involvement in restraining the war or pushing a settlement has exposed the limits of its real influence and the wide gap between its rhetoric and the expectations of its partners.
The second issue concerns China’s place in the international system, especially in the context of major power competition with Washington. The American administration appears to be treating this war as an opportunity to entrench a form of containment aimed not directly at Chinese capabilities, but at China’s surrounding network of relationships. By targeting regimes that lean politically or economically towards China, as in the cases of Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran, Washington is sending a message that there is no real room for Beijing’s expansion in regions the United States considers vital. Any bilateral relationship with China can be read in Washington as an attempt to undermine American hegemony, something that may expose the partner state to military destruction, especially under the current Trump administration.
“The targeting of Iran appears to be a double blow: securing Israeli interests while reasserting American hegemony by weakening another key Chinese partner.”
The third issue concerns Beijing’s management of its ties with both Iran and the Gulf states. These relationships reveal how hollow many of China’s regional commitments really are. During the current war, Iranian frustration with Beijing is likely to grow because of the scarcity of concrete support and the reliance on generic rhetoric about peace and stability. At the same time, China’s ties with the Gulf may also carry a cost. Its delayed response to Iranian strikes on Gulf states, and its two-day wait before issuing a statement stressing “the importance of respecting sovereignty”, raises serious questions about the usefulness of Chinese-Gulf partnerships when tested under fire.
In this file, China has tried to hold the middle ground. It abstained on a draft resolution condemning Iranian attacks on Gulf states in mid-March, thereby avoiding condemning Tehran while also refusing to incur the political cost of openly defending Iranian actions. The result is that partners on both sides leave this war with a clearer understanding of the limits of relying on China: broad economic partnerships, but a narrow political and security umbrella that falls well short of alliance.
A Global Economic Giant, But a Secondary Political Actor
In the end, as every crisis since Ukraine has shown, Beijing imposes strict limits on its interventions. It does not lead independent tracks to stop wars, and it does not offer meaningful security alternatives. This approach reduces the unwanted costs of deeper entanglement in conflict, but it also narrows China’s opportunity to reap the gains of decisive intervention.
More importantly, it reinforces a reality that China’s conduct has demonstrated repeatedly. Beijing is unquestionably a global economic giant, but in international politics it remains, more often than not, a secondary actor: hesitant, cautious, and limited in its ability to shape outcomes.
