China adds victories in the war in Iran. How Hormuz could turn into the Suez crisis for the USA

ANALYSIS || In Beijing – where opposition to a US-dominated world order is a principle of foreign policy – ​​political thinkers have been debating how the conflict in the Middle East has impacted the position of Americans on the global stage.

Beijing — When American and Israeli bombs began falling on Iran in late February, Chinese leaders faced the very real possibility of another allied regime being decapitated, as had happened to Venezuela just weeks earlier.

Nearly four months later, the view is very different: The United States and Iran have reached a tentative agreement after weeks of peace talks, but the regime in Tehran remains in power and the war is widely seen as having exposed the limits of American power.

Meanwhile, Beijing’s diplomatic influence appears to have increased – as the country has hosted a series of foreign leaders and presented itself as a defender of peace, even receiving repeated praise from US President Donald Trump for its response to the war.

The world’s second-largest economy has also weathered the historic energy crisis triggered by the conflict better than many of its neighbors – in particular due to its abundant strategic oil reserves and adoption of green technologies and electric vehicles.

China’s Foreign Ministry welcomed the announcement of the deal between the US and Iran in statements made this week, with a spokesperson saying that Beijing “stands ready” to play an active role in “restoring peace and tranquility” in the Middle East.

Asked whether Beijing had a role in the deal, spokesman Lin Jian did not confirm any specific role. But he also did not hesitate to highlight China’s “tireless” efforts to end the war, including through the release in April of its leader Xi Jinping’s four-point peace proposal.

And that praise didn’t just come from Beijing.

“I want to thank China, President Xi […] he has remained neutral, totally neutral, and I thank him,” Trump said at a G7 press conference in France on Wednesday, highlighting how the Chinese leader did not use his country’s naval power to challenge the US blockade of Iranian ports.

“They didn’t do that. President Xi helped me. He tried to help and I think he probably helped resolve the situation,” Trump added.

China adopted a cautious diplomatic stance during the conflict. He condemned the US and Israeli attack on Iran and continued to buy Iranian oil in defiance of US sanctions. But he also maintained open communication with actors on both sides.

Several foreign leaders have traveled to Beijing as the conflict has dragged on – including Trump last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi days earlier, and leaders from Pakistan, the conflict’s main mediator.

At the start of the negotiations, Tehran was eager to secure China’s support as a guarantor of a peace deal, but Beijing has shown little interest in playing such a formal – and potentially problematic – role.

On Wednesday, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi spoke to Araghchi by phone and called for navigation in the Strait of Hormuz to be “properly conducted.”

“The dawn of peace has emerged,” Wang said. “The key to the next step is for all parties to actually implement their commitments and eliminate interference from all sides.”

It is unclear whether or to what extent Beijing used its diplomatic weight to indirectly influence the most recent agreement, a memorandum of understanding formally signed on Wednesday that began a 60-day period to negotiate the final terms of a deal.

But for Beijing, these public visits have amplified its message that while others fight wars, China is a responsible global power — and a power broker.

Debate the “Suez moment”

As the two sides enter the next phase of negotiations, observers are closely watching what the US specifically gained from a conflict that had a high global economic cost.

In China – where opposition to a US-dominated world order is a tenet of foreign policy – ​​political thinkers have also debated how the conflict has impacted the US position on the global stage.

Some experts question whether the conflict represents a so-called “Suez moment” for the US, a reference to Britain’s loss of control of the Suez Canal in the 1950s, widely seen as a harbinger of Britain’s international decline and its eclipse by the US as a global power.

“Is the scene that cast a shadow over the British Empire during the Suez Crisis now being repeated for the United States in the Strait of Hormuz?” asked Sun Degang, director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, in a report published Tuesday in China’s state-run Global Times newspaper.

“Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has become the world’s ‘sole superpower,’” says Sun. This time, however, “US military power has not proven as overwhelmingly powerful as Washington imagined,” while the absence of key allies supporting its war is a sign that “the US-led global alliance system has shown increasing signs of division.”

It is an issue that has also been debated in the West, but in China, some voices have also expressed the view that Beijing benefited from Washington’s war.

“China has no interest in boasting the ‘aura of victory’ of a distant war in the Middle East,” wrote political commentator Hu Xijin on the social network Weibo earlier this week.

The conflict, however, influenced the world’s perception of China – showing the success of its “strategic planning” to resist energy shocks and the appeal of its peaceful “development path”, he says.

The war also “significantly diminished” the US’s overall deterrent power towards Taiwan, says Hu, pointing to how the conflict showed the limitations of US ammunition stocks and its inability to form a Western coalition, even against an isolated enemy like Iran.

China claims self-governing Taiwan as its own and has not ruled out using force to take control of the democratic island.

“What influence does the US have to convince its allies in Europe to confront China for American interests?” asks Hu.

China’s balancing act

How China will respond to what it sees as a weakening of the US is an open question.

Beijing has long positioned itself as a defender of a “multipolar world” and will likely use this conflict to drive another change it wants to see in the world: an end to the security environment dominated by the US and its alliances.

Throughout the war, however, Beijing sought to carefully navigate its interests rather than taking a leading role in resolving the conflict or openly taking sides.

While rhetorically supporting its long-time partner Iran, China has been measured in its criticism of the US for sparking the conflict and has held several calls and meetings with Gulf states that have been attacked by Iran.

It is widely believed that Beijing pressured Tehran to negotiate with Washington in early spring, even though Chinese companies – – supported Tehran’s arms acquisition. Beijing vehemently denies having supplied weapons to conflicting countries.

The fact that Xi was able to host Trump for a friendly meeting last month despite these assessments and while China maintained its long-standing position as the biggest buyer of Iranian oil may be a testament to Beijing’s influence – and its carefully calibrated balance.

But observers in China also say that a potential “Suez moment” for the US would not mean that China would automatically assume its place at the top of the world order. And Chinese officials and analysts have long said that Beijing does not want to be a superpower in the US mold.

“The US continues to be the most powerful external actor in the Middle East, what has changed is that its dominance now demands much greater political, military, economic and reputational costs,” says Sun Chenghao, a researcher at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing, to CNN.

The conflict could make China’s vision of the world – which emphasizes sovereignty, non-interference, political settlement and development-oriented security – more attractive to many countries, says Sun.

“But credibility is not only built through criticism of US actions – it also depends on China’s ability to provide practical diplomatic solutions, protect energy stability and help create conditions for de-escalation.”