Throughout the 12 days of the recent Israeli-Iran conflict, China has quickly positioned its position as a potential mediator and voice of reason amid a swirling regional crisis.
The day after Israel did not attack Iran on June 13, Beijing reached out to both sides to express its desire for a mediated solution, even if the country’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, condemned Israel’s actions as a violation of international law.
Chinese President Xi Jinping immediately followed a call for abdication, but at the UN Security Council, China joined Russia and Pakistan to call for an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire.”
Beijing also made a quick comment when Iran threatened to block a strategically important channel through which 20% of the world’s oil passes.
Instead, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs called for “to strengthen efforts by the international community to eliminate conflict and prevent regional disruptions from having a major impact on global economic development.”
Beijing’s stance throughout the conflict remained true to its long-standing approach to intervention against foreign hostilities. However, experts say they rarely helped to expose the limits of influence in the region, making up for their ambitions to become an influential player in the Middle East.
Why was China worried?
Unlike some countries, particularly the United States, China has traditionally approached foreign policy “through the lens of strategic pragmatism rather than ideological solidarity,” said Evangeline Chen, a researcher at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Studies Institute.
This approach means that China will always focus on protecting many economic interests in the Middle East, Chen told Al Jazeera.
China is investing in Israel’s fast-growing high-tech sector, with its belt and road infrastructure projects spanning Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
Seriously, China relies on the Middle East for more than half of its crude oil imports, and is the top consumer of Iranian oil. The long-term war would have disrupted the oil supply, similar to the blockade of Iran’s strategically important straits threatened by Tehran’s parliament during the conflict.
Alam Sale, senior lecturer in Iran studies at Australian National University, said:
“Therefore, China is looking for stability and opposes and opposes all kinds of military solutions to all kinds of conflicts and conflicts, regardless of who,” he said.
John Gong, a professor of economics at Beijing’s International University of Business and Economics, told Al Jazeera that China’s biggest concern from the conflict is to avoid a “surge in oil prices” that threatens energy security.
Bends diplomatic muscles and protects economic potential
Recognizing China’s friendly relations with Iran and Beijing’s economic fear, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called on Beijing to prevent Tehran from closing the Strait of Hormuz as ceasefire negotiations stumbled this week.
Although it was a brief moment of recognition of Beijing’s influence, experts say China’s overall diplomatic influence remains limited.
“China’s offer of mediation emphasizes the desire to be seen as a responsible global player, but actual leverage remains limited,” Chen said. “Without military capabilities and deep political influence in the region, China’s role is inevitably constrained as Israel is not wary of Beijing’s ties with Iran.”
Indeed, Beijing demonstrates its ability to mediate major diplomatic transactions in the region. In 2023, it mediated normalization of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. While it is seen as a major diplomatic victory for China, experts say Beijing owes much of its success to fellow mediators Oman and Iraq. China also pledged in July 2024 to cooperate with Palestinians, including Hamas and Fatah, in conjunction with Gaza’s governance after the end of the war that Israel is ongoing enclave.
But William Yang, a senior Northeast Asia analyst with Brussels-based international crisis group, said that Israel’s vigilance over relations with Iran has piled up against China from the beginning of the latest conflict.
In 2021, China and Iran signed a 25-year “Strategic Partnership” and Iran is an active participant in the Belt and Road Project. Iran also joined the Beijing-led Shanghai Cooperation Agency, and this year participated in China’s “Marine Security Belt” naval exercise.
Iran’s “decisive opposition to American hegemony” lined up more broadly with China’s diplomatic interests, Yang said, compared to Israel’s close ties with the United States.
The Chinese Dilemma
It’s a scenario that could repeat in the future, he said.
“This incident also reinforces the dilemma facing China. It wants to be seen as a great force that can mediate in global conflicts, but the close ties with some specific political parties in the ongoing conflict will diminish Beijing’s ability to play such a role,” Yang said.
For now, he added, Beijing will continue to rely on the US as security guarantor for the region.
“It is clear that China will continue to focus on deepening its economic engagement with Middle Eastern countries, taking advantage of the US presence in the region that remains the region’s leading security guarantor,” Yang said.
“On the other hand, US involvement in conflict, including changing war by bombing Iran’s nuclear presence, creates conditions in which China can rob moral highlands in the diplomatic sphere and manifest as a more restrained, mild, responsible primary force,” he said.
