Last spring, I had the opportunity to travel to Hong Kong. While I was there, I met with people from mainland China and discussed the gamut of issues on the U.S.-China agenda. When it came to the Middle East, one of my interlocutors relayed that Beijing does not look at the region the same way Washington does, declaring, “We just want to buy from and sell to the Middle East. That’s it.” A variety of Western-based China analysts have described Beijing’s policy in similar terms over the years, but I wonder whether the Chinese approach to the region is changing.
Since the hostilities between Israel and Iran ended in late June, there have been several reports detailing Beijing’s efforts to help Tehran rebuild its military capabilities. If true, these moves would represent a significant shift from China’s official neutrality on the conflicts in the Middle East. Why the change?
I am not ready to dig out my acid-wash Levi’s just yet, but there seems to be a mid-1980s, Cold War-ish proxy conflict setting up in the Middle East. The United States and Israel badly bloodied Iran. China, to protect its investment in Iran, apparently feels it must help the regime reconstitute its military capabilities. Anyone familiar with the history of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union will recognize this dynamic. It’s not likely to make the region safer.
China’s interests in the Middle East revolve around the imperative I heard in Hong Kong: to sell stuff to and buy stuff (mostly energy) from the region. That means Beijing wants regional stability, the free flow of energy resources, freedom of navigation, and access to markets.
These conditions overlap with the interests of the United States in the region, but instead of cooperation, Washington and Beijing are locked in a strategic competition. This has less to do with the Middle East and much more to do with Taiwan, those parts of Asia that Beijing considers its sphere of influence, and the inevitable rivalry between an established power and a rising one that wishes to alter the global order in its favor.
But the rivalry manifests in various parts of the world, including the Middle East, where Beijing and Washington are constantly trying to outmaneuver each other.
Yemen and the Houthis are a good example of how this competition plays out. Although China and Washington have a clear common interest ensuring freedom of navigation, they have approached the challenge the Houthis pose to shipping in the Red Sea in entirely different ways. Beijing basically cut a deal with the Houthis to protect Chinese shipping lines from attack. Washington, for its part, used military power to force the Houthis to back off (with mixed results). It is a perfect play for Beijing. Washington takes the hit in global public opinion for striking the Houthis, and American military resources that otherwise might get deployed in Asia are stuck in the Middle East. As a bonus, the Chinese military uses its base in Djibouti to get a good look at how the U.S. Navy operates—which could be useful in the event of hostilities in the Taiwan Strait.
The Chinese have also exploited American support for Israel after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, to gain an advantage not only in the Middle East but throughout what is known as the global south. Beijing has been atypically critical of Israel, but the harsh tone seems to have less to do with the plight of Palestinians in Gaza and everything to do with tying Washington to Palestinian suffering, thereby inflicting further damage on the global reputation of the United States.
Cutting deals with the Houthis and turning up the anti-Israel rhetoric are low-cost ways for Chinese policymakers to give their American counterparts a headache. This seems to be quite different from their approach to Iran, which Beijing actually needs. The Chinese government could manage without the Houthis or the invective aimed at Israel, but it cannot easily replace the roughly 13 percent of oil it imports from Tehran. That is a big deal for the world’s largest importer of crude oil (11.1 million barrels a day in 2024) and the reason why China has become vested in Iran’s stability. In 2021, the foreign ministers of the two countries signed a 25-year cooperation agreement. Although the final version was never made public, the New York Times got hold of a draft that obligated Beijing to invest $400 billion in Iran in exchange for the uninterrupted supply of heavily discounted oil. Although easy access to energy resources for Beijing was central to the deal, the draft included provisions for infrastructure projects and enhanced defense and security cooperation.
Yet, even if the final agreement diverges from the draft, the oil trade alone indicates a tighter relationship between Beijing and Tehran than analysts and policymakers generally appreciate. That is why—contrary to the claims of restrainers, realists, and reflexive critics of Israel—the war in June between Iran and Israel did not benefit Beijing.
Israel’s technologically sophisticated and expertly executed military operations—combined with the United States’ own airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites—set Beijing back in two ways: First, it seems to have strengthened the American-led order in the region. In recent years, when both Democrats and Republicans have taken steps to reduce the American presence in the region, this retrenchment has encouraged leaders in the Middle East to hedge with China (and Russia).
Operation Midnight Hammer demonstrated that Washington took the security concerns of regional countries—not just Israel—seriously. This fortified an American-led order that had previously looked wobbly due to concerns in the region that Washington’s “pivot to Asia” would leave its partners at the mercy of Tehran. The demonstration of American resolve does not mean an end to Chinese influence in the Middle East. Leaders in the region like their economic ties to Beijing, but they prefer U.S.-provided security to any alternative.
Second, the Israelis did a lot of damage to Iran’s military capability and instruments of the regime’s repression. Iran is weaker today than it was before June 13. A debilitated and potentially unstable Iran would damage the Chinese both economically and geo-strategically. China wisely stockpiles oil, but if the flow of oil to Beijing were interrupted even temporarily, it would likely have an adverse effect on the Chinese (as well as everyone else). If the Islamic regime collapsed and a new, more U.S.-friendly leadership were to come to power, it would likely compromise Beijing’s ability to outmaneuver or otherwise bog down Washington in the region. It thus makes a lot of sense for the Chinese government to move with alacrity to rebuild Iran’s air defense capabilities as well as its stockpile of ballistic missiles.
It also feels part of a regional playbook, for those of us who have followed the Middle East for decades. In 1967, the Soviets moved quickly to rebuild Egyptian forces after Israel’s stunning victory in the Six-Day War. The Israeli drubbing of Moscow’s clients in that conflict was also a victory for the United States. Almost six decades later, similar incentives and pressures seem to be shaping the competitive relationship among the United States, Israel, Iran, and China. The Trump administration is committed to ensuring that Israel has what it needs to confront threats to its security, including from Iran. China, similarly, is helping Tehran mitigate the threat from Israel. Should conflict between Israel and Iran erupt again, the process will likely repeat itself, further elevating the already considerable stakes in the regional struggle between Israel and Iran. That’s roughly what happened during the Cold War.
The analogy is far from perfect. Israel is less a client state than, say, El Salvador was in the 1980s. It also has a robust economic relationship with China, which America’s partners generally did not have during the Cold War. Still, it is hard not to get those 1980s vibes again when—beneath the level of superpower competition—zero-sum conflicts ruled and the world was a lot more dangerous.
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