For years, the relationship between China and Iran has been underpinned by a constant oil flow. However, the recent conflict between Iran and Israel caused Beijing He ordered his ships to turn in the Ormuz Strait. A seemingly technical gesture revealed something deeper: the limits of Chinese energy diplomacy.
From partner to spectator. The recent climb between Iran and Israel, which included direct attacks and cross reprisalshe tested the link between China and the Islamic Republic. Although a truce promoted by Washington was declared, these weeks the gaze was set on this part of the planet. In that context, the international community looked towards Beijing, waiting for a clear gesture of support or at least mediation.
But China opted for a prudent position: verbal sentences, called to dialogue, routine statements in the UN, According to Apnews. No military support, technical assistance, or real involvement. And that caught the attention, especially for what is at stake: between 80% and 90% of the oil that will export ends in Chinese refineries, which represents approximately 1.2 million barrels per day, According to France 24. Even so, Beijing chose diplomatic silence before the conflict.
China is not the United States. And it does not intend to be either. While the United States maintains a network of military basesnaval fleets and strategic alliances in the Middle East, China has no comparable presence. Your only regional base It is in Yibutiand his attempts to expand to Oman or the Arab Emirates have been stopped, in part, by Washington’s pressure.
As He explained The Interpreter, China has opted for a non -intervention policy. Its diplomacy in the region is pragmatic, transactional, guided by commercial interests rather than ideological affinities. “China’s footprint in the Gulf is commercial, it is not ready for combat,” said Craig Singleton, of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. For his part, William Figueroa, expert in China-Iran of the University of Groningen, It has been overwhelming In The Washington Post: “China has no capacity to militarily influence this conflict. Nor does it benefit from a broader war.”
Although it is a matter of pragmatism. From Beijing, Zhu Feng, Dean of International Relations at Nanjing University, He has remarked In AP News that volatility in the Middle East “directly affects China’s economic security.” However, that does not mean that it will be absent. His greater diplomatic letter In the region was the 2023 agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, negotiated in Beijing. Although he was read as a Chinese geopolitical triumph, The Interpretter He has nuanced: “The distension had already been brewing with the help of Kuwait, Iraq and Oman. China simply gave him the final touch.”
That discreet presence in the diplomatic field contrasts with its constancy in another key front: the energy. China has continued buying Iranian raw at reduced prices, Taking advantage of Tehran isolation For US sanctions. As has reported on their networks The journalist, Bachar el Halabi after the recent US bombings against Iranian nuclear facilities, oil exports to China did not stop, and in fact, they reached record levels. However, the relationship is fragile. In 2020, Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadineyad criticized the agreement of 25 -year cooperation between the two countries for considering it opaque and suspicious. Rumors about alleged Chinese military bases in Iran They circulated in the local pressfeeding distrust.
When there is a dependency. This week, Reuters He has revealed that Washington has authorized that ethane cargoes – a key natural gas for the petrochemical industry – are loaded in US ports to China, as long as they do not end in Iranian territory. The operation, according to the letter released by the Office of Industry and Security of the Department of Commerce, is approved under the condition that the product is not discharged or redirected towards Iran.
It may seem a bureaucratic technicalism, but it really says much more. This type of movements exposes how the United States continues to set the rules of the global energy game, even when it comes to exchanges between its two main strategic rivals. For China, the message is clear: its energy trade with Iran is still under surveillance. And for Iran, the warning is even more evident: Any attempt to avoid economic isolation, even indirectly, can be blocked from afar.
The dragon rhetoric. Beijing wants to be a global referee, but he is behaving as a spectator. A recent example is the Defense Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (OCS), held in Qingdao, where Chinese Minister Dong Jun spoke of a world in “chaos and instability,” According to Deutsche Welle. The meeting was attended by their counterparts from Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Belarus. China projected symbolic power, but did not offer concrete solutions.
In fact, even when they will threatened to close the Ormuz Strait – where 20% of the world crude, vital for China – pekin transits only the diplomatic tone, without major consequences. And, as multiple analysts explain, China has little appetite for risk. It is not yet willing to “risk the neck” in others. As It has concluded Craig Singleton in AP News, “When missiles fly, the so promoted ‘Strategic Association’ of China with Iran is reduced to communications. Beijing wants Iranian Iranian oil and headlines as a peacemaker, but let Washington load with the risks of hard power.”
A strategic patience. China remains a key actor of the global economic order, but its energy diplomacy does not obey improvisation or shyness. On the contrary, its caution in the Middle East can be a symptom of a deeper strategy: observe, resist external pressure and prepare the terrain before intervening seriously.
Beijing is not dragged by the logic of immediate power. He knows that in regions as volatile as Middle East, the cost of acting too soon may be greater than waiting. His silence, far from being absence, can be part of a longer play. Because oil unites, yes, but it also marks the rhythm of a power that is not in a hurry, but a course. And in Ormuz, those slow steps also make noise.
Image | Chinese Communist Party and Unspash
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