When President Trump arrives in Beijing this week for a summit with Xi Jinping, the Iran file will likely be on the agenda—whether or not either leader wants it there.
Just last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi made his first trip to Beijing since the war began, a visit timed to land days before Trump’s plane touches down. The choreography was hardly subtle. Tehran wanted to remind Washington that Iran still has a friend in the world’s second-largest economy. Beijing, in turn, wanted credit for hosting a beleaguered partner without committing to anything Trump couldn’t live with.
That balancing act is the entire Chinese policy, said Evan Medeiros, a former senior U.S. national-security adviser and now a professor at Georgetown University. And it is harder to pull off than it looks.
Xi is trying to thread several needles at once. China imports vast quantities of crude through the Strait of Hormuz, making stability in the Persian Gulf a core economic interest. Beijing also counts Iran’s Gulf rivals, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, as among its most consequential economic partners in the region. Those ties give Beijing reason to avoid appearing too closely aligned with Tehran.
Yet it values Iran as a strategic counterweight—a state that ties down American attention and military assets, a supplier of discounted oil and a customer for Chinese technology. In addition, Xi doesn’t want a confrontation with the U.S. while a fragile trade detente is still being negotiated—and while the Chinese economy is trapped in a deepening malaise that the government is trying hard to hide.
The result is a diplomacy of carefully calibrated optics. Beijing wants to look essential without doing anything essential.
“China seeks to position itself as the indispensable external power—but also limit how much China actually does to shape the situation,” said Medeiros. “Host diplomats and convene meetings. Say the right things publicly. But avoid making any costly decisions to support peace and open the Gulf. And whatever you do, don’t own the peacemaking process—just appear to—while ensuring you do not get pulled into the morass of Middle East politics.”
That formulation captures something Xi and his advisers seem to understand intuitively. The 2023 Saudi-Iran rapprochement brokered in Beijing was a propaganda win precisely because it cost China almost nothing. Anything more ambitious—pressuring Tehran to curb its proxies, contributing to a maritime security framework in the Gulf, underwriting reconstruction—would force trade-offs Beijing has no appetite to make.
A new posture
The recalibration has been visible to anyone watching closely.
Before Vice Foreign Minister Zhai Jun’s swing through the Gulf in early March, Chinese statements still leaned heavily toward Iran’s framing of the conflict. After Zhai returned, the tone shifted. The official line softened into neutrality: calls for de-escalation, freedom of navigation, dialogue among “all parties.”
The reason had less to do with Tehran than with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.—countries Beijing is keen to court—have no patience for a Beijing that sounded like an Iranian echo chamber on a war whose costs the Gulf monarchies are paying.
The phone call that followed between Xi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was the loudest quiet signal of Beijing’s new posture. The Chinese readout emphasized energy security, infrastructure investment and regional stability—language tailored for Riyadh, not Tehran. Iranian officials, who had been counting on Beijing’s rhetorical cover, took notice. So did the Emiratis.
Araghchi’s visit last week was, in part, an attempt to reverse that drift. He pressed for stronger Chinese statements and for assurances that oil purchases—the financial lifeline keeping Iran’s economy upright—would continue regardless of any new American sanctions. He left with warm words and few specifics.
This is the China that Trump will encounter when he sits down with Xi in the Great Hall of the People on Thursday. Not a peacemaker, despite Beijing’s preferred self-portrait. Not a total spoiler, despite American suspicions. Something more useful to Xi and more frustrating to everyone else: a power that wants the credit of mattering in the Middle East without the burden of mattering in the Middle East.
Who has more global leverage today: Washington or Beijing? Write to me at lingling.wei@wsj.com. Include your full name and location, and I might publish your response in a coming issue (if you’re reading this in your inbox, you can just hit reply).
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WSJ China is a weekly newsletter with exclusive insights on the contest between the U.S. and China, brought to you by WSJ Chief China Correspondent Lingling Wei, with help from Zhao Yueling. Reach Lingling at lingling.wei@wsj.com or at @Lingling_Wei on X (if you’re reading this in your inbox, you can just hit reply). Sign up to get an alert every time she publishes an article. Got a tip for us? Here’s how to submit.