People walk through a partially shuttered Tehran Market on Sunday. In the early hours of that day, the U.S. dropped a series of bombs on nuclear facilities in Iran, joining Israel's war with the country.Getty Images/Getty Images
In March, 2023, China won plaudits around the world for successfully brokering the normalization of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, ending one of the Middle East’s longest-running cold wars and advancing Beijing’s efforts to become a power broker in a region long dominated by the United States.
Months later however, as the Middle East was plunged into its biggest crisis in decades after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and that country’s subsequent bombardment and invasion of Gaza, Beijing’s ability to shape the situation has been shown to be minimal at best.
With Israel’s multifront war expanding to include Iran earlier this month, and the U.S. joining that conflict over the weekend, China again appears to be sidelined, with one of its main allies facing the possibility of a regime collapse and Beijing’s efforts to bring peace to the region in tatters.
Speaking at an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Sunday, China’s ambassador, Fu Cong, condemned the U.S. strikes on Iran’s three main nuclear facilities, saying they had seriously violated “the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and international law, as well as Iran’s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity.”
China's Permanent Representative to the UN, Fu CongEduardo Munoz/Reuters
He said Beijing was calling for “an immediate ceasefire and an end to the hostilities,” and was “deeply concerned about the risk of the situation getting out of control.”
In an editorial Monday, the state-run Global Times newspaper accused the U.S. of “pouring fuel on the flames of war and pushing the Iran-Israel conflict closer toward an uncontrollable state.”
“History in the Middle East has repeatedly shown that external military intervention never brings peace – it only deepens regional hatred and trauma,” the paper said.
Indeed, China’s growing influence in the Middle East in the past decade has been bolstered in part by a backlash to U.S. adventurism in the region and support for Israel, as well as Russia’s backing of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad before his fall. By comparison, Beijing was able to present itself as a benign power, interested in stability and opening new markets above all else.
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This was reflected in China’s ability to build relations with all players in the region, from the Gulf States to Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel, a push that was capped by the Saudi-Iran deal. Coming at a time when U.S. credibility had been badly shaken by the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Beijing talks were seen by some as a step toward a “post-American” era for the Gulf.
Stephen Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard University, called the deal a “wake-up call for the United States,” exposing “the self-imposed handicaps that have long crippled U.S. Middle East policy” and China’s push to “present itself as a force for peace in the world, a mantle that the United States has largely abandoned in recent years.”
With the U.S. bombing its fourth Middle Eastern country in a decade, that mantle is unlikely to be reclaimed, but it’s unclear what China can do with the goodwill it has.
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In the wake of Oct. 7, China condemned the attacks and Israel’s retaliation against civilians in Gaza. As the conflict escalated, Beijing, a longtime supporter of the Palestinian cause but increasingly close to Israel in recent years, was left to issue tepid statements that largely served to please no one.
While it has become more forceful about Israel’s conduct in recent months – along with the rest of the international community – China has not taken the lead on holding Israel to account but also been critical enough that it’s unlikely Israel would accept Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s suggestion of Beijing as a potential mediator in its latest conflict with Iran.
Shi Yinhong, an expert on international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said that China’s perceived closeness to Iran would likely mean it “cannot influence the fundamental Middle East policies imposed by Israel and the United States, beyond issuing angry condemnations.”
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The potential costs of that war to China’s Middle East strategy are great: Iran is by far Beijing’s closest ally in the region, and a major source of oil. Chinese state media has also highlighted how fighting could spill over into vital shipping lanes, which could harm trade at a time when the Chinese economy is already struggling with U.S. tariffs.
Were the Iranian state to collapse completely — as some in Israel have openly hoped for — there is a risk of the country becoming another Iraq or Syria, a source of chaos and violence rather than the stability Beijing has long sought to cultivate.
“No country would want to see another Iraq-like state emerge,” said Su Hao, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing. “For China, maintaining social stability in the Middle East and supporting the national resilience of individual countries aligns with the overall global interest.”
With files from Alexandra Li in Beijing