Xi offers veiled critique of US in rare comments on war in Iran

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, said Tuesday that the world cannot risk reverting “to the law of the jungle,” a thinly veiled criticism of the United States, in his most direct public comments on the US-Israeli war with Iran.

“Maintaining the authority of international rule of law means not using it when it suits us and abandoning it when it doesn’t,” he said in a meeting with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in Beijing.

Xi’s remarks, in addition to meetings and calls held by senior Chinese officials in recent days, suggest that Beijing is playing a more active role in trying to build on the two-week ceasefire that the United States and Israel struck with Iran last week. China is also heavily reliant on the Strait of Hormuz for oil, where Iran has restricted shipping for weeks and where the United States has begun enforcing a blockade aimed at choking off Iranian oil income.

China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, on Monday called on his counterpart in Pakistan to help “preserve the hard-won momentum” of talks it hosted over the weekend between the United States and Iran that failed to produce a peace agreement. During a meeting with the United Arab Emirates’ special envoy for China affairs, Wang also said Beijing was pushing for a return to peace in the region.

While China has condemned the US-Israeli war on Iran, it has also tried to maintain a neutral stance as it balances its partnership with Iran and manages tensions with the United States. President Donald Trump is set to visit Beijing in May, where he is expected to discuss extending a truce in the US-China trade war.

Ding Long, a professor at the Middle East Studies Institute of Shanghai International Studies University, said that as the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz has deepened, China has adopted a more active posture diplomatically. As much as 40 per cent of China’s oil imports are shipped through the waterway.

“Fundamentally it’s about the cessation of hostilities as soon as possible. This is the key,” he said. “It’s about giving peace talks a chance, and China is willing to play a greater role.”