--- title: Why is China Sitting Out the War on Iran description: China couldn’t prevent the United States from striking Iran but history gives Beijing reason to believe that when the dust settles, it will be able to capitalize, economically and diplomatically. canonical: https://time.com/article/2026/03/20/china-america-trump-xi-war-iran/ author: Ali Wyne article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-03-23T10:30:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-23T18:51:11.127Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why is China Sitting Out the War on Iran og:description: China couldn’t prevent the United States from striking Iran but history gives Beijing reason to believe that when the dust settles, it will be able to capitalize, economically and diplomatically. og:url: https://time.com/article/2026/03/20/china-america-trump-xi-war-iran/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb08ac048f06d11b3/69bd42c1b0c7515fc4bc2755/GettyImages-2266235528.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: GettyImages-2266235528.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why is China Sitting Out the War on Iran twitter:description: China couldn’t prevent the United States from striking Iran but history gives Beijing reason to believe that when the dust settles, it will be able to capitalize, economically and diplomatically. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb08ac048f06d11b3/69bd42c1b0c7515fc4bc2755/GettyImages-2266235528.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why is China Sitting Out the War on Iran > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=545eb3f5-9e53-4036-8cec-6066524abd62&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) by [Ali Wyne](https://time.com/author/ali-wyne/) ## Ali Wyne Mar 23, 2026 10:30 AM UTC  A woman sifts through the rubble in her house in Beryanak district in Tehran, Iran on March 15, 2026 after it was damaged by missile strikes carried out by the United States and Israel. A woman sifts through the rubble in her house in Beryanak district in Tehran, Iran on March 15, 2026 after it was damaged by missile strikes carried out by the United States and Israel. Majid Saeedi–Getty Images by [Ali Wyne](https://time.com/author/ali-wyne/) ## Ali Wyne Mar 23, 2026 10:30 AM UTC A question has become ubiquitous since President Donald Trump started the war against Iran: Why is Beijing not doing more to support Tehran? There are many answers, and they begin with a practical one. Given the intensity, pace, and scope of American and Israeli strikes, it is far from clear what assistance China could provide that would meaningfully enhance Iran’s capacity to retaliate in the short term. But the more significant answer lies in China’s security priorities. China may have the world’s[ second largest](https://www.iiss.org/publications/the-military-balance/2026/the-military-balance-2026/global-defence-spending/) defense budget, but its military modernization remains overwhelmingly oriented toward its[ objectives](https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11719) within Asia. The paramount objective for Beijing is advancing unification with Taiwan, followed by pressing its territorial claims across its disputed border with India, and across the contested waters of the East and South China Seas. China is, to be sure, expanding its military presence beyond Asia—it established a military base in Djibouti in 2017, and its 2022[ Global Security Initiative](https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/research/2025/11/chinas-foreign-police-training-a-global-footprint) has expanded police and internal security training programs across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. But there is little evidence that China seeks to rival America’s capacity to project force across the globe. Quite the opposite, Beijing regards American entanglements in the Middle East over the past decades—including the now metastasizing crisis in Iran—as a cautionary tale. In Sept. 2021, the American political scientist Neta Crawford[ tallied](https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/sites/default/files/papers/Costs-of-War%5FUS-Budgetary-Costs-of-Post-9-11-Wars.pdf) the total budgetary costs and future obligations of America’s post-Sept. 11 wars as amounting to roughly $8 trillion. What does the U.S. have to show for that staggering outlay? The Taliban retook power in Afghanistan. The invasion of Iraq[ resulted](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-at-how-fear-and-false-beliefs-bolstered-u-s-public-support-for-war-in-iraq/) in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and over 4,000 U.S. service members, and it spawned the Islamic State. The U.S. military intervention in Libya[ produced](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/17/libya-conflict-10-year-anniversary/) a brutal[ civil war](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/17/libya-conflict-10-year-anniversary/) and unleashed chaos inside and beyond the country’s borders. And American support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen only exacerbated a catastrophic humanitarian disaster. Such misadventures are one reason why Washington initiated its effort to rebalance toward Asia belatedly. America[ understood](https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/40/4/45/12127/The-Pivot-before-the-Pivot-U-S-Strategy-to) by the turn of the century that its most consequential geopolitical competition would unfold across the Indo-Pacific and not in the Middle East. But counter-terrorism came to dominate U.S. foreign policy after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks—a grip that successive administrations have struggled to shake for a quarter-century. America pursued the “[Pivot to Asia](https://www.cfr.org/articles/us-pivot-asia-much-more-military-rebalance),” fitfully and “[never shifted away](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/asia-after-america-cooper)” from the Middle East. ### America blunders, China watches China unsurprisingly[ sees](https://apnews.com/article/iran-china-trump-xi-hormuz-b4037d9d5af7fa4b210d75f6d69d4533) potential upsides to America dragging itself into another brutal and expensive war, however short lived it may prove. And Trump is struggling to manage the consequences of precisely the kind of war that he rightly criticized his predecessors for initiating. A prolonged and escalating conflict would dampen investor confidence across the Middle East and undercut his Administration’s effort to build out digital infrastructure in the region as part of its[ Pax Silica Initiative](https://www.state.gov/pax-silica), which seeks to develop a secure artificial intelligence supply chain among the U.S. and a select group of partners, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. America’s European and Asian allies and partners[ worry](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/07/allies-fear-iran-war-will-leave-them-without-u-s-weapons-they-bought-00817204) that the Trump Administration is diverting weapons pledged to them to sustain its bombing campaign against Iran. Some 2,200 Marines and Navy sailors previously stationed in Japan have been[ redeployed](https://abcnews.com/Politics/deployment-marines-middle-east-raises-specter-ground-troops/story?id=131129821) to the Middle East and components of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system are being transferred[ from](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/03/09/iran-war-cost/) South Korea. And Washington, already struggling to broker an end to a war between Russia and Ukraine that has entered into its fifth year, now has still less bandwidth to focus on Asia. To be sure, mounting chaos across the Middle East also causes headaches for China. Roughly 13% of the seaborne crude Beijing imported last year[ came](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/business/china-trade-persian-gulf-iran.html) from Iran. But China is not as vulnerable to energy disruptions as one might assume; it has built up its[ crude reserves](https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/As-Oil-Surges-To-80-Chinas-Stockpiles-Become-Strategic-Leverage.html) over the past year and[ continues](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/power-switch/2026/03/05/clean-power-cushions-china-from-iran-oil-fallout-00814883) to accelerate its investments in clean energy. Tellingly, ships[ declaring](https://www.ft.com/content/eaecc3ce-ba4e-4e19-9d0a-6cf1536a5aed) Chinese ownership or announcing Chinese crew are transiting the Strait of Hormuz safely, suggesting that Beijing is still securing a share of the oil flowing through that vital waterway. Some observers conclude that China’s failure to support Iran more strongly reveals the hollowness of their vaunted partnership. That judgment, however, exhibits a mirror-imaging fallacy—assuming that Beijing should or would approach its external alignments and conduct its foreign policy in the same way Washington does. ### Beijing and the Art of Geopolitics China prefers to engage with other countries without being drawn into their conflicts or incurring legal obligations to defend them. That disposition is partly rooted in historical memory. In the 1950s, China and the Soviet Union appeared bound by an unbreakable alliance, but ideological differences and a struggle for leadership of the communist world produced a rupture so severe that Beijing and Moscow stood on the precipice of war in 1969\. China therefore prefers flexible alignments over the formal defense alliances that America has long prized. It[ condemns](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-urges-immediate-ceasefire-after-us-israel-strike-iran-2026-03-01/) American strikes against Iran, but it is[ expanding](https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2025/10/imports-and-influence-chinas-growing-economic-presence-in-the-gulf) its economic ties with Iran’s Gulf neighbors. It[ touts](https://www.reuters.com/world/xi-putin-hold-phone-call-ukraine-war-anniversary-state-media-says-2025-02-24/) its “no limits” partnership with Russia while positioning itself to help reconstruct a postwar Ukraine. It maintains a treaty alliance with North Korea, but works to[ stabilize](https://apnews.com/article/china-south-korea-trade-lee-xi-venezuela-fe0a027934d91a678481d9b77b9ac0df) relations with South Korea. In short, China maintains a diversified portfolio of transactional relationships, centered primarily around commerce in the Middle East and beyond. According to a Jan. 2025[ tally](https://interactives.lowyinstitute.org/features/china-versus-america-on-global-trade/) by the Lowy Institute, some 145 economies now trade more with China than with America. Trump’s supporters[ see](https://www.wsj.com/opinion/america-is-the-sole-superpower-again-0a89e41a) in his actions the emergence of a new geopolitical moment, which would mostly offer strategic dividends to an unshackled superpower. He has indeed brandished American power in ways that would have seemed inconceivable a year earlier. Yet it is becoming increasingly apparent that Trump has lost control of the security, economic, and diplomatic dynamics he set in motion when he chose to go to war with Iran. Having declared just over a month ago that he was “[very much](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116013105630663812)” looking forward to meeting Xi Jinping in Beijing, he has since requested a postponement of their long-awaited summit. His efforts to assemble a naval coalition to reopen the Strait of Hormuz have met with a tepid response, prompting him to[ declare](https://apnews.com/article/trump-iran-nato-strait-of-hormuz-europe-4e0cf38708e9c3ba8ea2a36148620067) implausibly that the U.S. can manage the task alone. Xi appears to be observing and recalibrating his foreign policy patiently. His bet—reinforced, it seems, by[ recent polling](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/15/trump-china-europe-closer-ties-00823457) in allied countries—is that the U.S. is steadily eroding the foundations of its influence by resorting to military and economic coercion more frequently and unapologetically. For years, Washington’s policy circles had harbored a particular anxiety: that China might grow[ militarily aggressive](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/delusion-peak-china-united-states-evan-medeiros) precisely because it sensed that its own power was cresting. That fear now looks to be premature. As Jonathan Czin and Allie Matthias of the Brookings Institution argued in a recent[ essay](https://www.prcleader.org/post/occidental-fall-assessing-chinese-views-of-u-s-decline), Chinese officials have instead come to see Washington as a declining rival––still formidable, but potentially more dangerous. 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