The following analysis draws on extensive discussions with Chinese security, military and political experts based in Beijing, and reflects analytical assessments rather than the official position of the Chinese government on Iran’s recent protests.
Once again, Iran has been gripped by nationwide protests, after demonstrations erupted late last year in multiple cities. Driven by a familiar cocktail of economic pressure, inflation, energy shortages and deep political fatigue after the 12-day war last June, the unrest was neither spontaneous nor entirely unexpected.
Iranian society was already under strain from sanctions, war damage, and uncertainty over the country’s nuclear future. The protests reflected anger at governance and living conditions, but also anxiety about Iran’s strategic direction in a moment of exceptional vulnerability.
From Beijing, these events were observed, but without alarmist rhetoric.
Chinese analysts quickly framed the protests not as a revolutionary moment, but as a continuation of the instability triggered by the 12-day war. In this reading, domestic unrest and external military pressure were two expressions of the same phenomenon: sustained coercion against the Iranian state.
China’s view, shaped by its own security doctrine and historical experience, diverged sharply from Western narratives that portrayed the protests as a decisive turning point for regime change.
Chinese security circles assessed the protests as geographically widespread, but numerically limited, suggesting that while demonstrations occurred in many urban centres, the number of protesters at any single location – except a few peak moments – rarely exceeded 50,000.
The conclusion was blunt: the protesters were loud, visible and disruptive, but not demographically or organisationally overwhelming. In Beijing’s calculus, scale matters more than symbolism, and the scale was insufficient to suggest imminent systemic collapse.
Domestic security logic
Chinese analysts have also echoed a core argument advanced by Iranian authorities: the distinction between peaceful protest and anarchic violence, noting that no political system, whether democratic or authoritarian, tolerates armed actors, attacks on public infrastructure, or confrontations with police.
From this perspective, suppression of riots is framed not as ideological repression, but as standard state behaviour. This framing is consistent with China’s own domestic security logic, and helps to explain why Beijing showed little sympathy for calls to internationalise the Iranian protests.
Crucially, Chinese military and policy experts did not treat the protests as an isolated domestic episode, but rather as a political aftershock of last summer’s 12-day war. The destruction of infrastructure, the psychological impact of Israeli and US strikes, and the persistent threat of renewed conflict have all contributed to social instability.
In this view, unrest in Iran is not evidence of regime weakness alone, but also of sustained external pressure designed to stretch the state across the military, economic and social domains simultaneously.
This assessment feeds directly into China’s evaluation of the likelihood of another military confrontation. Chinese security circles increasingly regard a renewed Israeli or US attack on Iran as imminent.
From Beijing’s perspective, unresolved questions surrounding Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, restricted nuclear inspection access, and continuing missile development create strong incentives for preemptive action by Iran’s adversaries. At the same time, Chinese analysts see little evidence that the military balance has meaningfully shifted since the 12-day war.
In Beijing’s view, both Iran and Israel today possess roughly the same offensive and defensive capabilities that they had before June 2025. Iran remains weak in air defence and air power, while retaining significant missile and drone capabilities. Israel maintains air superiority and layered defences, but remains vulnerable to saturation attacks.
As a result, Chinese experts assess that another war would not produce a fundamentally different outcome, except in scale and intensity. The next conflict, they argue, would probably be more brutal, more destructive, and more difficult to contain, with a higher risk of spillover into neighbouring states.
Test case for sovereignty
This prospect alarms Beijing not because of ideological alignment with Tehran, but because of regional stability. China’s overriding interest in the Middle East is predictability: secure energy flows, protected trade routes, and the avoidance of cascading conflicts. A wider war involving Iran, Israel and the US, and potentially drawing in Hezbollah, Yemen or Gulf states, would threaten all three.
Despite this, China has no intention of stepping into a military role. Chinese security circles are explicit on this point. Beijing supports peace and stability in Iran and across the region, opposes regime change, and rejects foreign military intervention. It views sovereignty as the organising principle of international order, and Iran as a test case.
But this support remains strictly political and diplomatic. China does not intend to interfere in Iran’s domestic affairs, nor to provide military backing in the event of war.
This position reflects both principle and pragmatism. Intervening militarily on Iran’s behalf would risk confrontation with the US and undermine China’s broader global strategy. Politically, however, Beijing sees value in standing by existing governments against what it perceives as externally driven destabilisation. From China’s standpoint, regime change – whether in Iran or elsewhere – produces disorder, not democracy.
Economic pressure further sharpens this stance. The US decision to impose 25% tariffs on countries trading with Iran is interpreted in Beijing as part of the broader economic confrontation with China. Chinese policymakers view these measures less as Iran-specific sanctions and more as another front in Washington’s efforts to constrain China’s global economic reach.
As a result, Beijing does not expect these tariffs to meaningfully disrupt Sino-Iranian relations. Trade may adapt, and routes may shift, but the strategic logic remains intact.
China’s approach to Iran’s current crisis is neither romantic nor cynical. It is coldly systemic. Beijing sees protests without a critical mass, a regime under pressure but not near collapse, and a looming war that would damage everyone involved. China will call for restraint, condemn intervention, and continue doing business, while preparing for the instability it believes others are making inevitable.
From Beijing’s vantage point, Iran is not about ideology. It is about precedent. And precedents, China believes, are far more dangerous than protests.
Source: MEE
