There has been no shortage of “hot takes” and other commentary on China and Iran since the US and Israel began combat operations against their sworn enemy. For example, some say that China was central to US calculations in the first place. Others believe that China has a lot to gain from the war. This “China wins” logic is that China benefits from the depletion of US resources during involvement in another supposed Middle East “quagmire.”  

While the situation in the Gulf is very much in flux, and operations, according to Trump, are far from over, below are five initial takeaways that can help frame analysis about how China views the conflict and how the US thinks about China in the context of the conflict. 

  • First: China hardly factored into US calculations about the use of force against Iran.  

    Washington has good reasons that have been articulated, if not always consistently, for going to war against Iran, and they all have to do with the threat that Iran poses. Observers should take the Trump administrations at its word that, wherever it may land on regime change in Tehran, the purpose of military operations against Iran is the degradation of Iran’s offensive conventional and nuclear capabilities. 
  • Second: Trump’s foreign policy doctrine looks a lot like the maintenance of US primacy globally, with a growing inclination to use force. 

    Like most presidents before him, Trump wants the strategic autonomy to act when he deems it necessary to further US interests. This inclination will impact China’s strategic perceptions. It will enhance their concerns that Trump is an unpredictably ruthless power broker. Xi Jinping will view him as a force to be reckoned with who is not signing on to the idea that America is declining or will back away from a fight.
  • Third: China will be impacted, on balance, adversely. 

    Even though Beijing maintained a balancing act, developing and sustaining good relations with Iran’s Gulf rivals, Beijing did view Iran as an ally whom it helped arm and train. China contributed to Iran’s economic survival through its import of a majority of Iran’s oil exports. China will have to recalibrate its Middle East policy with a new strategic balance led by a dominant US-Israel axis. It will have to expend more finite resources to develop the capability to project power globally and protect its energy supply lines (it has somewhat protected itself against oil disruptions by creating one of the largest oil reserves in the world). And, it will have to contend with a more confident US superpower rival going into a bilateral summit.
  • Fourth: There are upsides for China. 

    The US is depleting its shrinking arsenal in the Middle East. The fact that, four years into the Russia-Ukraine war, the US faces munitions shortages for weapons systems that matter in a potential China-Taiwan scenario—from air and missile defense interceptors to Tomahawk cruise missiles—is nothing short of scandalous. The Biden administration should have made munitions production a top national security priority in an effort led by the president and secretary of defense. The Trump administration should have continued with such an effort or started one of its own. This does not mean that China will invade Taiwan as a consequence of the Iran attack. Even so, Washington will have work to do quickly to restore deterrence in the Western Pacific.
  • Fifth: China will portray itself as a stable, peaceful, and predictable alternative to the US.

    Regardless of how China is impacted, it will use the war and the instability it causes to advance its diplomatic message. While Western countries dismiss such propaganda as hypocritical, given China’s strategic military build-up and menacing hybrid warfare tactics in the Indo-Pacific, the message has resonance elsewhere in the world, including among important non-aligned Southeast states such as Indonesia.