When US and Israeli bombs first began falling on Iran at the end of February, China’s leaders were staring at the very real possibility of another friendly regime being decapitated, much like had happened with Venezuela only weeks before.
The view is quite different nearly four months later: the United States and Iran have reached an interim agreement after weeks of peace talks, but the regime in Tehran remains in place and the war is widely seen to have exposed the limits of American power.
Meanwhile, Beijing’s own diplomatic clout has appeared to rise – as it’s hosted a parade of foreign leaders and cast itself as a proponent of peace, even earning repeated praise from US President Donald Trump for its response to the war.
The world’s second largest economy has also weathered the historic energy crunch triggered by the conflict better than many of its neighbors – in particular due to its copious strategic oil reserves and embrace of green tech and electric vehicles.
China’s Foreign Ministry welcomed the announcement of a US-Iran deal in comments this week, with a spokesperson saying Beijing “stands ready” to play an active role in “restoring peace and tranquility” to the Middle East.
When asked whether Beijing had a hand in the agreement, the spokesperson, Lin Jian, didn’t confirm any specific role. But he also didn’t hesitate to point to China’s “tireless” efforts to end the war, including through leader Xi Jinping’s release of a four-point peace proposal in April.
And that praise wasn’t only emanating from Beijing.
“I want to thank China, President Xi … he stayed neutral, totally neutral, and I appreciate it,” Trump said at a G7 press conference in France on Wednesday, noting how the Chinese leader didn’t use his country’s naval might to defy the US blockade on Iranian ports.
“They didn’t do that. President Xi helped me. He tried to help, and I think he probably helped get it solved,” Trump added.
China walked a careful diplomatic line during the conflict. It condemned the US and Israeli attack on Iran and continued to buy Iranian oil, in defiance of US sanctions. But it also kept communications open with players on both sides.
Numerous foreign leaders have made their way to Beijing as the conflict has worn on – including Trump last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi days earlier, and leaders of Pakistan, the conflict’s main mediator.
Early in negotiations, Tehran had been eager to secure China’s backing as a guarantor in a peace deal, but Beijing has shown little interest in playing such a formal – and potentially vexed – role.
On Wednesday, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi spoke with Araghchi over the phone and called for navigation in the Strait of Hormuz to be “properly handled.”
“The dawn of peace has emerged. The key to the next step is for all parties to truly implement their commitments and eliminate interference from all sides,” Wang said.
It’s not clear whether or to what degree Beijing used its diplomatic weight to backchannel toward the latest agreement, a memorandum of understanding formally signed Wednesday, triggering a 60-day period to negotiate the final terms of a deal.
But for Beijing, these very public visits amplified its message that while others are waging war, it is a responsible global power – and power broker.
Debating the ‘Suez moment’
As the two sides enter into the next phase of negotiation, observers are watching closely for what exactly the US gained from a conflict that took a heavy global economic toll.
In China – where opposition to a US-dominated world order is a tenet of foreign policy – political thinkers have also been debating how the conflict has impacted the US’ place on the global stage.
Some pundits are asking whether the conflict is a so-called “Suez moment” for the US, a reference to Britain’s loss of control over the Suez Canal in the 1950s, widely seen as a bellwether for Britain’s international decline and its eclipse by the US as a global power.
“Is the scene that cast a shadow over the British Empire during the Suez crisis now being replayed for the United States in the Strait of Hormuz?” asked Sun Degang, director of Fudan University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies in Shanghai, in an opinion piece published Tuesday in China’s state-run Global Times.
“Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has become the world’s ‘sole superpower,’” Sun said. This time, however, “US military power did not prove as overwhelmingly powerful as Washington had imagined,” while the absence of key allies backing its war is a sign that “the US-led global alliance system has shown increasing signs of division,” he wrote.
It’s a question that’s also been debated in the West, but in China, some voices have also spelled out a view that Beijing has gained from Washington’s war.
“China has no interest in wearing the ‘victor’s halo’ of a distant Middle Eastern war,” political commentator Hu Xijin wrote on the social media platform Weibo earlier this week.
But the conflict has influenced the world’s perception of China – showing the success of its “strategic planning” to weather energy shocks and the appeal of its peaceful “development path,” he said.
The war has also “significantly diminished” the US’ overall deterrent power when it comes to Taiwan, Hu wrote, pointing to how it showed limits in US munitions stockpiles and its inability to form a Western coalition even against an isolated enemy like Iran.
China claims the self-ruling Taiwan as its own and has not ruled out using force to take control of the democratic island.
“What leverage does the US have to convince its allies in Europe to go head-to-head with China for American interests?” Hu wrote.
China’s balancing act
How China responds to what it sees as a diminished US is an open question.
Beijing has long positioned itself as the champion of a “multipolar world” and it’s likely to use the conflict to push for another change it wants to see in the world: the end of security environment dominated by the US and its alliances.
Throughout the war, however, Beijing looked to carefully navigate its interests, rather than taking a front seat in conflict resolution or overtly picking sides.
While backing its longtime partner Iran rhetorically, China has been measured in its criticism of the US for sparking the conflict and held multiple calls and meetings with Gulf states that came under Iran’s attack.
Beijing is widely seen to have pushed Tehran toward talks with Washington earlier this spring, even as Chinese companies – according to the US government – have supported Tehran’s weapons procurement. Beijing broadly denies providing weapons to countries in conflict.
That Xi was able to host Trump for a friendly meeting last month, despite these assessments and while China held its longstanding place as the largest buyer of Iranian oil, may be testament to Beijing’s clout – and its carefully calibrated balancing act.
But observers in China also say that a potential “Suez moment” for the US wouldn’t mean China automatically takes its place at the top of the world order. And Chinese officials and analysts have long said that Beijing doesn’t want to be a superpower in the mold of the US.
“The US remains the most powerful external actor in the Middle East. What has changed is that its dominance now requires far greater political, military, economic and reputational costs,” Sun Chenghao, a fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy in Beijing, told CNN.
The conflict may make China’s worldview – emphasizing sovereignty, non-interference, political settlement and development-oriented security – more attractive to many countries, he said.
“But credibility is built not only through criticism of US actions; it also depends on whether China can provide practical diplomatic solutions, protect energy stability, and help create conditions for de-escalation.”
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