What role China should play in the Iran Israel war - a realist view

Trust and support must be earned, not bestowed. Iran needs to do more if it wants China’s support

Many Chinese strategists, way smarter and better informed than myself, are working on the issue as we speak. I have implicit trust they will reach the right course of action to protect China’s national interests in the ongoing crisis.

My own modest aim in the essay is to offer a dispassionate and nuanced analysis of the situation from a personal point of view.

I’ll focus on dispensing some popular myths about the implications of the war on China and the China Iran relationship. Once the myths are dispelled, I think reader can anticipate and interpret China’s moves far more easily in the coming weeks and months.

Myth 1: China hasn’t helped

Reality: China denounced Israel’s aggression and called for immediate cessation of hostilities in various forums: UN Security Council, BRICS, SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), and China Central Asia Summit. Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi called both Iranian and Israeli foreign ministers to ask for de-escalation. President Xi talked with President Putin today and both condemned Israel and called for ceasefire.

Iran hasn’t publicly asked for help from China and Russia. However, I believe both President Xi and President Putin are ready to mediate if requested by Iran.

Myth 2: If Iran is defeated, it would be the end of the multipolar world that China is advocating together with Russia

Reality: Israel is unlikely to defeat Iran on its own. It could do serious damages (and Iran is retaliating) but won’t prevail in either destruction of Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure or regime change.

If the US steps in, it can certainly drop bigger bombs and potentially destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities more completely. But the nuclear facilities can be rebuilt and Iran may finally decide to go for the bomb.

The US is also unlikely able to regime change Iran without boots on the ground and physically occupying the country, the largest one it would have ever attempted (90 million population, 1.6 million square kilometers).

The war will be airborne, fought with fighter, bomber, missile and drone.

Unless the Iranian people are so upset and intimated by the war as to decide to overthrow the government, the Iranian regime will stay in power. In fact, the war could be a catalyst for much needed national unity in a divided society. Then this could actually be the silver lining that comes out of the terrible war.

If the Iranians were to overthrow the government and embrace their enemies, then Iran is not worth saving for China or Russia. Neither can social engineer a deformed society that wants to leap into the arms of those who just bombed it into submission.

Common sense tells us it is hard to bomb a people into loving you (though I have to make exceptions for the Japs, the Krauts, and the Viets – they do seem to have enjoyed the nuking, firebombing, and Agent Orange, and have become obedient lap dogs to the perpetrator “you know who”).

I expect Iranians to have a stiff spine and become a more cohesive and united society against their common enemies, as what happened during the Iran Iraq war in the 1980s.

Sometimes, it takes a brutal wake-up call to dispel collective delusions, like the Ukraine war has done with many Russian “liberals” who have long wanted to belong to the West but now realized its future is with the East.

Myth 3: If China and Russia let the US and Israel attack Iran, they will lose moral legitimacy and get isolated by the global south for not standing up. Then they would be “toast” as the US turns its gunsight on them. This school of thought is popularly termed as the “domino effect” theory.

Reality: This is the easiest myth to refute. It is the US that is losing any residual legitimacy in the eyes of the world for joining the Jews in a naked unprovoked war of aggression at the same time as it continues to enable a genocide by bombing and starvation in Gaza.

If the world would fall for the likes of the soulless new Nazi German chancellor Mertz who openly provides weapons to slaughter the Gaza Palestinians and praises Israel’s attack on Iran as “doing our dirty work”, then it is not a world that China and Russia want to set free from tyranny. It would deserve it.

In reality, it is the West that is being isolated and despised, win or lose in Iran, not China or Russia. To think otherwise, you need to have your head examined.

The US would step right into yet another bear trap, if it decides to join Israel directly in battle. How many billions and dead GIs did it manage to expend to take out the much weaker Taliban and Iraqi governments? How much would it cost with Iran? I wrote China’s strategy to defeat the US is to bankrupt it with Trump’s help (https://huabinoliver.substack.com/p/china-s-strategy-to-defeat-the-us ). TACO Trump sure is following my script.

Does anyone seriously believe a pro-Israel and pro-US government would rise in Iran if, god forbid, they manage to destroy the Iranian regime? Has Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, or Syria turned out to become US bosom friends? Again, exceptions apply as mentioned earlier. But I am counting on not everyone is so shameless.

In the 1960s and 70s, the war hawks in the US constantly talked about the “domino effect” if communist North Vietnam won the war. What happened when it did win? Did a “domino effect” happen that damaged US national interests?

After 58,000 body bags, the “domino effect” school’s prophesy proves just another excuse to beat the war drum. And now, the US is wooing communist Vietnam to contain China. Ironic?

While the US gets mired in Iran and spends its gold and blood, China would leave it in the dust in new energy, green tech, space, AI, robotics, and global trade. If you think the US would be in a stronger position vis-à-vis China, think again.

No one wants Iran transgressed and humiliated, but who wants to stop the US from taking a dive head first into a cesspool? Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake…

More importantly, the US will not have any easier time fighting China or Russia, regardless what happens to Iran. China and Russia are simply too strong for the collective west. War among giants are determined by hard power, not some Machiavellian manoeuvrings.

Western “strategists” are so intellectually bankrupt these days that they conflate “clever” tricks and treacheries with brilliant strategic moves. Their petty machination is no match with real national power.

Superpowers like China and Russia have the resources and the grit to crush thuggish manipulations the West treasures so much.

Myth 4: Iran is a core interest and a close ally for China

Reality: It simply isn’t. China has long been transparent and explicit about its core geopolitical interests. Those are Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the China India border. Its key geopolitical partners are Russia and Pakistan.

China does value Iran as an economic and political partner but its interests are mainly commercial. China buys oil from Iran and sells manufactured goods to the country.

While Chinese oil purchase account for 90% Iranian oil exports and 20% GDP, China depends on Iran for only 12-14% of its oil import. China’s energy sources are highly diversified and its top oil suppliers are Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. China also buys more oil from Malaysia and UAE.

As China electrifies and decarbonizes, its oil demand has peaked and is expected to decline gradually. China leads the world in green energy and the gulf region will be less critical over time.

Land routes and railways are built via BRI projects through central Asia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to connect Eurasia continent, providing an alternative to the ocean lanes in the India Ocean, Red Sea, Hormuz Strait, and Suez Canal.

Iran has not cooperated closely with China on energy and infrastructure projects, having given more contracts to Europe than China since the loosening of the sanctions when JCPOA was signed. Now sanctions are back on and the Europeans retreat. China is not waiting by the phone.

Iran has proven an unreliable business partner. The US and Canada used Huawei’s trade with Iran as the pretext to detain Meng Wanjun, Huawei’s CFO and the daughter of the company founder, for 3 years. It was Iranian traitors who snitched on Huawei’s projects to the US. Iranian traitors also betrayed another Chinese telecom provider, ZTE, leading to a $1 billion fine by the US sanctions regime.

Iran is a member of BRI but has awarded its most important port project to India – the Chabahar port and the railway between Chabahar and Zaranj. India is hardly a friend of China’s and not part of the BRI.

Adding insult to injury, Iran made this decision after China helped to mediate the centuries-long Iran Saudi hostility in 2023.

While Iran is free to make its choice as a sovereign country, it hasn’t reassured China by flirting with India and hedging its commercial and geopolitical bets with that fence-sitter of a state, knowing full well such a move will be frowned upon by Beijing.

Even worse, Iran has provided safe havens to the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) terrorist group at its border with Pakistan, who has repeatedly attacked the China Pakistan Economic Corridor project, the $62 billion flagship BRI project. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/18/where-balochistan-why-iran-pakistan-strikes)[](https://jamestown.org/program/grievances-provoke-surge-in-baloch-separatist-militancy-on-both-sides-of-pakistan-iran-border/)

The BLA has sabotaged the Gwada Port project, a linchpin of China’s Indian Ocean sea routes, and has killed Chinese engineers and construction workers with suicide bombers and ambushes. The BLA is also funded by India.

Iran’s poor judgement has seriously eroded its relationship with China. China has not expressed its frustration publicly but Iran can hardly count on China to bail it out of a crisis.

Ironically, although Iran has gone out of its way to woo India, including going to New Delhi to sign a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement with India in the middle of last month’s India Pakistan war, India has betrayed Iran in the most shameless way possible.

Two days ago, India announced it dissented from the joint declaration to condemn Israel’s attack from SCO, which both India and Iran belong to. A day before distancing itself from SCO, India abstained in the UN General Assembly on a resolution calling for ceasefire in Gaza. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/16/why-india-refused-to-join-sco-condemnation-of-israels-attacks-on-iran

Iran seems totally oblivious to the fact India is the most pro-Israel country in the global south with X showing a 5 to 1 pro-Israel Gaza stance on India social media, comparable to data from Israel itself and even higher than the US, a Jew occupied territory. The Bha-rat empire is a global outlier when it comes to basic human decency.

There are numerous postings on Indian social media that announce “I stand with Israel” in the middle of the genocide. Indian trolls are the most active promoting the Israeli narrative on Gaza. Even better for Israel, the Indian support comes for free – even AIPAC has to bribe US politicians to repeat those heinous talking points.

Iran also seems unaware India is one of the most Islamophobic countries in the world where the Hindus make Muslim prosecution a national sport.

When push comes to shove, it is Pakistan who stood out after Israel launched its attack. Pakistan has publicly committed to support Iran militarily, even offering its “nuclear umbrella” in the event of an Israeli nuclear attack.

As shown in the ongoing conflict, Iran has not procured any modern Chinese weapon systems. It has long relied on Russia and domestic arms supplies which have hardly made an impact in air combats (in fact, there has been no air combats at all over Iranian airspace – the Israeli air superiority seems complete).

This stands in stark contrast with the superior performance of Chinese fighter jets, early warning radars, and air to air missiles demonstrated by the China-supplied Pakistan AirForce in its aerial war with India.

Iran’s military procurement decision is hard to understand since China has offered to sell its air defense systems on several occasions at extremely competitive prices. Again, Iran has shown poor judgement on such critical national security matters.

Iran’s lack of strategic acumen, reliability, and sound judgement is hardly a recommendation for closer ties with sophisticated powers like China. There is an old Chinese proverb that warns “wet mud can’t be used to build walls”.

Myth 5: If China doesn’t fight the US in Iran, then it has to fight the US at home. So it’s better to fight the US in Iran now rather than wait for the US to attack China at China’s own doorstep

Reality: Such views are basically a rehash of George W. Bush’s famous words, “if you don’t fight the terrorists over there, you’ll fight them over here”. Let alone the fact such a remark is a flimsy fig leaf to hide aggression, W is hardly an intellectual giant or military genius. Quite the contrary.

China is much better off to fight the US at its own doorstep. It will win such a contest without doubt. However, fighting the US in the middle east, 5,300 or 7,200 kilometers away (the distance between Beijing and Tehran/Tel Aviv), where the US has numerous military bases and local lackeys while China has none, is a losing proposition.

Advocating China to fight the US in Iran is a poison pill and a nut job. Of course, Beijing will never take the bait.

China is fully aware that a final showdown will come with the US but it is an strategic imperative for China to pick the time and place. The logic is the same as the first mover advantage in the game of Go – the first mover gets to establish the tempo and force the opponent to react, thus allowing the first mover to dictate the direction of the game.

Chinese strategic thinking is honed by the home-grown game Go for 2,000 years and it’s a game of patience and strategic thinking. In comparison, the western game of chess is short term action-reaction risk-reward focused and inferior.

The final showdown with the US will be the deciding event for the world for the next century or so. A new world order depends on the outcome. There is no way China will take unnecessary risks before it is fully ready. The events in the Middle East now are noise in the grand scheme of things.

Myth 5: China shares the same views on alliances as the West; China’s goal is to replace the US to be the world’s policeman and now the opportunity has presented itself

Reality: China’s views on alliances are informed by its own history and geopolitical insights, which differ significantly from prevailing western international relations thinking.

Some have argued that a Russia-Iran-China axis is the key to challenge western domination. I doubt Beijing subscribes to this Brzenzski theory, articulated in his Grand Chessboard book.

The idea sounds plausible at the time but upon closer examination, it is an outdated view of the world and reflects a perspective that might be valid 30 years ago but no longer reflects the present-day reality.

Since the book’s publication in 1997, the relative power positions of the major players have changed beyond Brzenzski’s wildest dreams.

Today China can contravene the US as a peer competitor on its own, as the trade war and tech war have shown clearly. US strategists such as Jake Sullivan, Kurt Campbell, and Rush Doshi have acknowledged the US needs its “allies” and “partners” to gang up to have any prospects to contain China.

The days when the US alone has enough hard power to confront China are long gone, an embarrassingly humbling position for the self-acclaimed superpower hegemon.

In addition, a multilateral alliance is as strong as its weakest link. Unfortunately Iran is the weak link. It’s not in China’s interest to tie itself down to a rigid structure that delivers more obligations than benefits.

By Beijing’s calculations, a formal alliance structure suffers many drawbacks:

- Risk of entrapment by small, less powerful, but more reckless and belligerent junior partners (like the Baltic chihuahua states in NATO);

- Collective action problems (like Hungary and Turkey’s disagreements with the rest);

- Imbalance and reciprocity problems (the US spends 3.5% GDP on defense while EU averages 1%; Trump is nuts about the “unfairness”, and rightly so);

- Embedded trust issue (would the US wage a nuclear war with Russia on behalf of Lithuania under chapter 5 and commit national suicide?)

- Ideology-driven alliances have the unpleasant stink of universalist missionaries that China hates (remember the Crusade?)

In short, formal alliances can easily turn into an albatross, more a liability than asset.

In China’s strategic calculation, Iran doesn’t rate the same as Russia or even Pakistan. While there is no way China would risk a possible Russia setback in the Ukraine war or Pakistan defeat by India, it has a much higher risk tolerance regarding Iran.

China also wants to balance relationship with Turkey, Gulf states and Egypt. None of them want to see too close a relationship between China and Iran, especially if China plays a mediator role in the middle east.

In the past, China was badly betrayed by Albania, a communist partner it generously funded during the Cold War but turned west the first moment Cold War ended. It was also betrayed by Vietnam after supporting it during the war with the Americans. China has learned its lesson.

Finally, China has no design or interest to replace the US as the new “sheriff in town”. China lacks the ideological missionary zealotry of “liberal democracies” and the “self sacrifice” to police and shape the world to its own image. The “Whiteman’s Burden” is called that for a reason. No such burden for China.

In summary, if Iran survives the current Israeli/US aggression and wants China’s help in the future, it must do more to earn China’s trust and support. Geopolitical partnership is not some bestowed gift but a privileged relationship glued by mutual interests and trust.

In the end, this is not China’s war.