A US attack on Iran would show the limits of China's power

By David PiersonKeith Bradsher and Berry Wang

When China helped negotiate a peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2023, it hailed the breakthrough as a victory for Chinese diplomacy and a sign that the United States' chief geopolitical rival had emerged as a major power broker in the Middle East.

But as President Donald Trump openly ponders deploying US forces to join Israel in attacking Iran, the limits of China's clout in the region are coming into focus.

China has much to lose from a runaway conflict. Half of the country's oil imports move in tankers through the Strait of Hormuz on Iran's southern coast. And Beijing has long counted on Tehran, its closest partner in the region, to push back against American influence.

But despite those strategic interests, China, which has little sway over the Trump administration, is unlikely to come to Iran's defense militarily, especially if the United States gets involved.

"The reality is they don't actually have the capability to insert Chinese forces to defend Iran's installations," said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "What they would prefer to do is very quietly provide some material support, some rhetorical support and maybe some humanitarian aid."

Though China favors stability in the Middle East, it could also gain if the United States gets roped into a prolonged war there, which might divert US troops, ships and other military resources away from Asia.

Whether Trump decides to strike Iran will offer lessons for Beijing that could shape its own geopolitical strategy. China will be trying to understand Trump's approach to foreign policy and his willingness to use force. The outcome could influence Beijing's assessment of whether the United States would come to the defense of Taiwan, the self-governed island that Beijing claims, should China decide to invade it.

Despite China's close relationship with Iran, its rhetoric about the current conflict has been strikingly measured at the highest levels. After its top leader, Xi Jinping, called for a ceasefire during a call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia on Thursday, a summary of the call released by the Chinese government did not overtly criticize Israel for violating Iran's sovereignty.

Xi also refrained from directly urging the United States not to attack Iran, saying only that the "international community, especially major powers that have a special influence on the parties to the conflict, should make efforts to promote the cooling of the situation, rather than the opposite."

When China's top diplomat, Wang Yi, called his counterpart in Israel, he expressed Beijing's opposition to Israel's attacks, according to the Chinese summary of the call. But he stopped short of saying that China "condemns" them, as he had in a call with Iran.

In another call, with the foreign minister of Oman, Wang said that "we cannot sit idly by and watch the regional situation slide into an unknown abyss," according to a Chinese government statement. But it is unclear what, if any, specific efforts China has made to find a diplomatic solution. In any case, Israel would likely be skeptical of China's neutrality as a mediator because of its alignment with Iran and engagement with Hamas, the Palestinian ally of Iran that attacked Israel in October 2023.

China's efforts, at least in public, have been focused on evacuating more than 1,000 of its citizens from Israel and Iran.

"Beijing is scrambling to keep up with the rapid pace of events and is prioritizing looking after Chinese citizens and assets in the region rather than any sort of broader diplomatic initiative," said Julian Gewirtz, who was a senior China policy official at the White House and the State Department during the Biden administration.

Discussions of the conflict on China's heavily censored online forums have largely centered on the poor performance of Iran's military and security apparatus, though some participants have noted the limits of China's support for Iran.

Zhu Zhaoyi, a Middle East expert at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said in a post that China could not provide Iran with "unconditional protection" and confront the United States and Israel militarily. He said Beijing could only exert pressure through the United Nations Security Council, of which China is a permanent member.

"The turmoil in the Middle East is both a challenge and a test for China," Zhu wrote.

China's tempered response resembles that of its like-minded partner, Russia, which has done little more than issue statements of support for Iran, despite having received badly needed military aid from Tehran for its war in Ukraine. Both Beijing and Moscow were also seen as bystanders last year when their shared partner, the Assad regime, was overthrown in Syria.

Their relative absence raises questions about the cohesiveness of what some in Washington have called the "Axis of Upheaval" -- the quartet of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, which have drawn closer diplomatically and militarily around a common opposition to the US-dominated world order.

Of the four nations, only China is deeply embedded in the global economy, which means it has much to lose from turmoil in the Middle East. It buys virtually all of Iran's exported oil, at a discount, using clandestine tanker fleets to evade US sanctions. And its ships depend on safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz to transport additional oil from Gulf states.

Higher energy prices would present another major headache for Beijing, which is trying to turn its sluggish economy around.

Besides energy, Iran provides China with a crucial foothold in the Middle East for advancing its interests and countering the United States, which has tens of thousands of troops across the region. Beijing has cultivated closer ties with Gulf states for the same reasons.

Chinese analysts often argue that Beijing is an attractive mediator in the Middle East because it will not lecture other countries about issues like human rights. "It's the only major power trusted by rival factions in the region, capable of achieving breakthroughs where the U.S. cannot," said Wen Jing, a Middle East expert at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

But some Western analysts say China played only a small role in the detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia, toward the end of those negotiations. Washington has also been frustrated by Beijing's reluctance to put pressure on Iran to stop Houthi rebels from attacking ships off the coast of Yemen, except in cases involving Chinese vessels.

That unwillingness to apply pressure on its partners undercuts China's standing in the Middle East, said Barbara Leaf, a former assistant secretary of state for near Eastern affairs at the State Department who is now a senior adviser at Arnold and Porter, a Washington-based law firm.

"Nobody is saying, 'We better call up Beijing and see what they can do here,' because Beijing has played a purely commercial and economic role," Leaf said, describing the attitudes of Middle Eastern officials with whom she has spoken over the years.

"They just sort of take it as a given that China is going to look out for China," she said.