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KN-BEIJING, The outbreak of war between the United States, Israel, and Iran presents a major geopolitical test for the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Beijing has had strong economic and trade ties with countries in the region, enjoying some diplomatic success in the 2023 brokering of the normalization of ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran, all while walking a tightrope between rival factions.
The China–Iran relationship is built on longstanding economic and political ties between Tehran and Beijing. For Iran, the PRC offers a critical partner that can help blunt U.S. efforts to isolate it economically and diplomatically. For Beijing, Iran represents both a vital source of energy and a strategically located partner in the Middle East central to advancing President Xi Jinping’s global infrastructure vision, particularly the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, the current war has quickly escalated to a wider regional conflict, and Beijing must now balance its economic interests, strategic ambitions, and diplomatic posture amid growing geopolitical volatility.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated during a call with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi that Beijing values its longstanding relationship with Iran and supports Tehran in safeguarding its sovereignty, security, territorial integrity, and national dignity. He reaffirmed China’s principled support for Iran’s legitimate rights and interests while urging restraint from all parties. Wang Yi specifically called on the United States and Israel to immediately halt military operations, warning that continued escalation risks further widening the conflict across the Middle East. The Chinese foreign minister expressed Beijing’s confidence that Iran would maintain national and social stability while also emphasizing the need to consider the “legitimate concerns” of Iran’s neighbors — a direct reference to Iranian actions affecting Gulf states.
However, despite its strategic and economic interests in Iran, Beijing has so far adopted a cautious and diplomatically focused posture. As during the Twelve Day War in 2025, China has prioritized mediation and regional engagement over overt political alignment. Wang Yi has held a series of calls with regional counterparts in an effort to de-escalate tensions. In discussions with Oman’s foreign minister, Wang Yi warned that further escalation and regional spillover “do not serve the interests of the Gulf countries,” adding that regional states should “oppose external interference” and “truly take their future and destiny into their own hands,” an implicit critique of the U.S. and Israel.
Wang Yi said: “China opposes the military strikes launched by Israel and the United States against Iran. The use of force cannot truly resolve the issue. Instead, it will create new problems and grave repercussions.” This is consistent with Beijing’s longstanding approach to Middle Eastern crises, which emphasizes conflict mediation rather than entanglement and confrontation.
For the PRC, Iran occupies a unique position in its global infrastructure vision. It serves as more than just a geographic waypoint along the BRI, but as a vital link connecting East Asia to Europe through land-based transport and energy routes. The “economic belt” of the BRI — which aims to reduce dependence on maritime chokepoints and U.S.-controlled sea lanes — cannot function effectively without stable access through Iranian territory. This has become even more pressing as the current conflict effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz — an energy artery where approximately 50 percent of Chinese energy imports transit through. Iran offers essential overland access to Europe and hosts vast reserves of oil and gas resources that Beijing needs to fuel its domestic growth and diversify its energy imports. Disruptions to this strategic corridor threaten to undermine the PRC’s supply chains linking China through Central Asia to Iranian ports on the Persian Gulf, with no viable alternative land routes that can replicate Iran’s centrality without incurring significant costs and risks.
The PRC’s military cooperation with Iran is limited and largely symbolic. Although the two countries have conducted six annual joint naval drills with Russia since 2019 — “The Maritime Security Belt” — the exercises serve more as strategic signaling than evidence of deep operational integration. Moreover, arms exports to Iran are already constrained by international sanctions. Unlike Pakistan, Iran does not represent a significant market for Chinese defense exports; Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) data shows a sharp decline in Chinese arms deliveries to Tehran in recent years, with Russia emerging as Iran’s primary military supplier. Only a week ago, however, Reuters reported that Tehran was close to finalizing a deal with Beijing to purchase Chinese surface‑to‑air missile systems (MANPADS), anti‑ballistic weapons, anti-satellite weapons, as well as supersonic anti‑ship cruise missiles, the CM‑302. With a range of about 290 kilometers, the CM-302 could pose a threat to U.S. naval forces in the Middle East. Beijing denied the existence of the weapons deal.
While Iran is indispensable to its Eurasian ambitions, Beijing’s strategic calculus is shaped more by caution than by commitment. The second conflict in less than 12 months between the United States, Israel, and Iran has revealed that the PRC’s support for its partners — especially those in confrontation with the U.S. — is limited by a complex matrix of interests, including its desire to avoid alienating major economic partners and escalating tensions with the West. Beijing’s approach to the war has exposed a central tension in its foreign policy: the ambition to present itself as a counterweight to U.S. global dominance, while avoiding costly entanglements that could provoke direct confrontation. This ambivalence has drawn criticism, particularly among actors in the Global South who view Beijing as an alternative to Western hegemony. For many of these states, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) cautious diplomacy reinforces perceptions that Beijing is unwilling to act decisively when doing so entails strategic risk. In 2023, Iran became a full member of the PRC-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), but so far, the multilateral security forum has only issued a statement expressing “grave concern over developments in the Middle East and the armed attack against Iran.”
Photo: Ilustration, source: Sepriorities.org
Glembert
