U.S. Attacks on Iran Test Fragile Truce With China
Beijing has condemned the U.S.-backed strikes on Iran, a close partner. Yet with trade talks looming, it is unlikely to risk a rupture with Washington.
The détente between China and the United States was already fragile. Now it faces a new strain: the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, an American-backed strike that Beijing denounced as a blatant attempt at regime change.
China has moved quickly to condemn the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, with its top diplomat, Wang Yi, accusing both governments of assassinating another country’s leader and pledging to support Tehran’s sovereignty and security.
The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei came less than two months after American forces captured President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, another close partner of China. Together, the moves amount to a forceful display of American power against governments China has cultivated as part of its broader global strategy.
Yet for Beijing, the question is how far to defend Iran, its closest diplomatic partner in the Middle East, without hurting its own economic interests or worsening tensions with the United States.
Already, the fighting has touched China directly. China’s foreign ministry said a Chinese national had been killed in Tehran and that Beijing was scrambling to evacuate thousands of its citizens.
Beijing is likely troubled by the potential ripple effects of the American and Israeli strikes. China is the world’s largest importer of energy and Iran has already threatened to “set on fire” any ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway off Iran’s southern coast through which a fifth of the world’s oil travels. That could drive up prices and hit China’s economy.
There is also a quieter, domestic sensitivity to foreign-backed regime change. Xi Jinping, China’s leader, who has been in power since 2012 and is widely expected to begin a fourth term next year, presides over a political system that brooks no dissent. Under a Chinese state media article about Mr. Khamenei’s death, internet users congratulated Iranian residents and wondered aloud which leader might be next. Other comments suggesting that Iranians might have been celebrating have been censored.
Even as it navigates the various dimensions of the fallout from Iran, Beijing is likely most focused on its relationship with the United States.
President Trump and Mr. Xi are weeks away from a summit in Beijing where they are expected to extend a trade truce between the world’s two-largest economies.
The White House has said the meeting would take place from March 31 to April 2. China has yet to confirm details of the meeting and a foreign ministry spokeswoman said on Monday only that the two countries were in talks.
China could still consider canceling or postponing the meeting with Mr. Trump to show its displeasure with Washington’s use of military power against Iran.
Despite its sharp rhetoric over Iran, Beijing has strong incentives to keep its relationship with the United States on an even keel, analysts said. China wants Washington to agree to extend the trade truce, reduce its support for Taiwan and ease its restrictions on technology exports.
“Beijing cares much more about managing the United States than events in the Middle East,” said Julian Gewirtz, a former senior director for China and Taiwan Affairs at the National Security Council under President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The trip to China, which would be the first by an American president since Mr. Trump went in 2017, is seen as vital for maintaining the truce Mr. Xi and Mr. Trump reached last October in Busan, South Korea. Before that, China and the United States had engaged in a blistering trade war that sunk relations to their lowest point in more than 50 years.
For China, postponing or canceling the summit would carry costs of its own. Mr. Trump has signaled a willingness to avoid confrontation with Beijing. His administration recently delayed announcing a package of arms sales to Taiwan, the self-governed island claimed by Beijing. It has eased restrictions on sales of advanced American chips to China. Mr. Trump refrained from mentioning China in last week’s State of the Union address, an unusual omission.
The legal landscape has also shifted in favor of Beijing, with the recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down many of President Trump’s tariffs. His new 10 percent tariff on global imports is beneficial to China.
Walking away from the meeting could mean forfeiting that momentum.
Beyond the summit, the conflict could reshape the strategic landscape in ways that benefit Beijing. Already, the United States has amassed the largest military force in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, deploying aircraft carrier strike groups and jets to the region. If that effort proves sustained, it could draw American attention and resources away from Asia.
Beijing may not be bothered if “the United States becomes bogged down in another unpopular war in the Middle East” that distracts it from China, Mr. Gewirtz said.
Beijing must also thread a diplomatic needle with Tehran. China has forged deep economic ties with many of the countries in the Gulf that Iran has launched attacks against in recent days, such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Mr. Wang tried to strike a balance in his call with Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, calling on Iran to “pay attention to reasonable concerns of its neighboring countries.”
Unlike the United States, which has formal defense commitments with dozens of allies, China has only one, with North Korea. Its partnerships with Iran and Venezuela are strategic, not military alliances.
“Xi Jinping is unsentimental toward all of Beijing’s external relationships. He got to where he is based on his hardheadedness,” said Joe Webster, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington research group. “There’s not a large dividend for having a soft heart in the Chinese Communist Party.”
Beijing will instead likely continue to offer rhetorical support for Tehran while arguing that the United States is the greatest source of global instability. An editorial in the Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party tabloid, on Monday called on the international community to reject what it said was Washington’s bid to return the world to the “law of the jungle.”
Chinese analysts speaking to state media say the United States and Israel are sowing chaos in the Middle East and have set a dangerous precedent by assassinating Mr. Khamenei.
Still, the strikes on Iran have laid bare the gulf between the two superpowers’ military capabilities. Despite its rapid investment in recent decades, China does not possess an army like the United States that can project power in any part of the world.
That rankles Beijing, said Dylan Loh, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, because it means no country — not even China — can stop the United States from taking whatever action it wants.
“The demonstration of raw, hard power is something that will worry Beijing,” Mr. Loh said.
Lily Kuo and Chris Buckley contributed reporting from Taipei, Taiwan. Ruoxin Zhang contributed research from Beijing.
David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.
More on the Assault on Iran
Trump Administration on Scope of War: President Trump said the United States would continue attacking Iran until it was incapable of posing a threat. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that “the hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military.”
Security Targets: The United States and Israel have been striking Iran’s police stations, detention centers and intelligence offices in addition to military targets, in an apparent effort to weaken the country’s entrenched security agencies.
Iran’s Capital Under Siege: Residents in Tehran talked to The Times about the bombardment, describing block after block littered with mangled metal, shards of glass and shreds of paper.
Impact on U.S. Embassies: The United States government closed its embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and ordered nonessential staff in several other countries to evacuate as Iran expanded its retaliatory attacks.
U.S. Campuses in Mideast: A number of major universities with campuses in Qatar and other nations are operating remotely as the conflict expands.
Iran’s Ballistic Missiles: Trump said that destroying Iran’s missile capabilities was one of the top U.S. objectives. But finding and destroying Iran’s entire arsenal of ballistic missiles as well as their production sites could be particularly challenging.
Israel’s Goal to Remake the Region: Emboldened by its partnership with the United States, feeling its own military strength, and sensing the weaknesses of its two fiercest adversaries, Israel is seizing the new war as an opportunity to pursue its own geopolitical agenda.
U.S. Military Death Toll: The number of U.S. service members killed in the first three days of the war grew to six as officials said the remains of two more troops had been recovered.