The Iran-Israel war: A blow to China's status in the Middle East

During the 6-7 July BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, conflicts in the Middle East featured prominently on the agenda, with a joint declaration urging an end to the “cycle of violence” in the region and deploring military strikes against Iran.

While the United States and Israel were not mentioned by name, they were the target of the statement.

China’s rhetoric on Israel and the US’s 12-day war against Iran was reflected in the BRICS communiqué. On 14 June, Chinese Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) Fu Cong condemned Israel’s violations of Iranian sovereignty and defended Tehran’s right to maintain a peaceful nuclear energy program.

After the US struck Iran’s nuclear facilities on 22 June, China co-sponsored a UN Security Council resolution with Pakistan and Russia that called for an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East.

China’s strident opposition to Israel and the US’s offensive against Iran reflected its fears of economic blowback from a protracted war in the Middle East.

Nonetheless, the exclusively rhetorical nature of China’s response underscored its regional balancing strategy and limited influence in the Middle East.

While the abject failure of Russian and domestically made air defence systems increases the appeal of Chinese military technology in Iran, Beijing is unlikely to step in as a major arms supplier.

Drivers of China's opposition to Israel's war

As Israel’s Operation Rising Lion campaign against Iran’s nuclear facilities and military infrastructure gained momentum, China framed the developments as unambiguously dangerous for international security.

On 13 June, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian declared that “a sudden rise in regional tensions is not in the interests of any party”.

Chinese commentators were more equivocal about the conflict’s implications for China’s global influence. Tian Wenlin, a Professor at Beijing’s Renmin University, summarised China’s ambiguous view on the war in the following manner.

If the US and Israel severely weakened Iran’s military capabilities, he wrote, Chinese influence in the Middle East would greatly diminish. If the US got mired in a long war against Iran, China could potentially capitalise on it being drawn into a Middle East quagmire.

Despite these vacillations, China continued to stridently criticise the war for three reasons. Firstly, this stance acknowledges China’s long-standing opposition to US and Israeli military interventions in the Middle East.

When China condemned NATO’s 2011 military intervention in Libya and Western efforts to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, it invoked comparable sovereignty narratives. China’s repeated post-7 October calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the creation of a Palestinian state echo this normative posturing.

Second, China used its anti-war rhetoric to promote a narrative of American decline in the Middle East and present itself as a more responsible superpower than the US.

China’s state-aligned Global Times newspaper, for example, highlighted Trump’s inability to rein in Israeli aggression towards Iran, and Shanghai International Studies University Professor Liu Zhongmin decried inconsistencies in US policy.

In stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s clashes with IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi over the state of Iran’s nuclear program, China unwaveringly supported the IAEA’s role in supporting nuclear non-proliferation.

Third, China was alarmed by the economic risks associated with a protracted war in the Middle East. China purchases 5.4 million barrels of oil per day through the Strait of Hormuz and would have suffered economically from an Iranian blockade of the chokepoint.

The initial wave of attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militants on maritime shipping in late 2023 increased the shipping costs for 40-foot containers from China to Northern Europe from $1,500 to $4,000.

A new wave of Houthi attacks would have dealt further disruption to Chinese trade with Europe at a time when the European Union (EU) is actively trying to de-risk from China.

Why China was unwilling to support Iran

Although China strongly opposed Israeli and US military attacks on Iran, it refrained from providing it with material assistance. China’s restraint reflected its “friends with all, enemies of none, allies of none” approach to Middle East affairs, which has undergirded its ascendancy in the region. Nonetheless, it was a bitter disappointment for many Iranians. 

“Iran expected China to do more than verbal condemnation of the Israeli war against Iran and US attacks,” Ali Akbar Dareini, a Tehran-based foreign affairs commentator, told The New Arab.

While Dareini conceded that China and Iran lack a “strategic relationship” that implores mutual defence, he argued that “China could have put more of its diplomatic weight to increase the costs of war for Israel and the US”.

China’s reluctance to help Iran stemmed from its uncertainties about the Islamic Republic’s staying power. A narrative of Iranian economic weakness and technological backwardness permeated throughout the Chinese information space after the initial Israeli attacks.

In an article entitled “Will Iran be the Second Assad’s Syria,” Chinese military analyst Wang Shichun deplored the “staggering” level of Israeli infiltration of Iran and unfavourably compared Iran’s failed nuclear deterrence strategy to North Korea’s successful one.

This narrative was paired with scepticism about Iran’s reliability as a partner for China. Iran’s refusal to accept a Chinese military base, pursuit of closer ties with India, and meek response to Assad’s overthrow fuelled Beijing’s doubts. The notion that Iran was vulnerable and reliable caused many Chinese commentators to argue that supporting it was not worth the risk.

As the attacks intensified, this pessimism subsided, and confidence about Iran’s ability to outlast Israel began to grow. Huang Jing, an academic at Shanghai Foreign Studies University, predicted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would fall as a result of the war and warned that even US support would not allow Israel to fulfil its stated objectives.

This confidence in Iran’s staying power did not trigger calls for Chinese aid as Beijing believed it would not make a transformative difference.

China’s decision to hedge its bets was pragmatic from a geostrategic standpoint, but detrimental to its great power status aspirations in the Middle East. China’s unwillingness to even attempt brokering talks between the warring parties shattered the image of strength that emerged from its March 2023 Saudi Arabia-Iran normalisation deal. 

“Clearly America is back in a big way in the Middle East and China and Russia are nowhere to be seen,” Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a prominent Dubai-based political scientist, told The New Arab.

“America is a big winner and Russia and China are the big strategic losers of the latest military showdown since the October 7, 2023, event.”

Could China reassert its influence in the Middle East?

As the tenuous Qatar-brokered ceasefire holds, speculation is growing about possible Chinese offensive weaponry transfers to Iran.

As rumours swirl about an impending transfer of Chengdu J-10C fighter jets to Iran, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has indicated that it is willing to export this military technology to “friendly countries.”  Due to the proven weaknesses of Iran’s domestic and Russian-made air defences, there is speculation about a possible Chinese surface-to-air missile battery shipment to Tehran. 

Despite the persistence of these rumours, there are reasons to doubt that China will send advanced military technology. Naser al-Tamimi, a Senior Associate Research Fellow at Milan’s ISPI think tank and expert on China-MENA relations, told The New Arab that there have been no major Chinese arms sales to Iran since 2005 and that future assistance would likely be confined to dual-use technologies or covert equipment transfers via third parties.

Even if China hesitates on arming Iran, it is unlikely to become a partner in Trump’s efforts to quell regional tensions. Much like its past reluctance to exert leverage over the Houthis about their attacks on maritime shipping, China ignored US requests to urge Iran to avoid blocking the Strait of Hormuz.

If China feels that it has less to lose than Western powers in the event of an escalation, a zero-sum approach to regional tensions will prevail.

The 12-day war painfully exposed the limitations of China’s ascendancy in the Middle East and underscored its struggles to convert economic influence into geopolitical clout.

This trend will likely continue as the region remains on a cliff’s edge between new nuclear negotiations and a reignition of military hostilities. 

Dr Samuel Ramani is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank and the CEO of Pangea Geopolitical Risk. Samuel is the author of two recent books on Russian foreign policy: Russia in Africa and Putin's War on Ukraine, and is a regular commentator on Middle East affairs for the BBC, Sky News, Al Jazeera, and CNN International

Follow him on Twitter: @SamRamani2