China declined an opportunity to join Iran in its June 2025 confrontation with the United States and Israel. Though Beijing enjoys good relations with the Iranian regime, competing alignments and other considerations convinced PRC policymakers to adopt a low profile during the twelve-day war.
Israeli security forces look on as a digger clears the rubble of a destroyed building at the site of an Iranian strike that hit a residential neighbourhood in the Ramat Aviv area in Tel Aviv on June 22, 2025. (Photo: Jack GUEZ / AFP)
Despite strong Sino-Iranian ties, the Middle East’s importance for China’s economy, and Beijing’s growing diplomatic profile in the region, the PRC government generally stood aside during the twelve-day (June 13-24) war between Iran and Israel, joined briefly by the United States. Beijing largely confined its reaction to diplomatic statements, criticizing Israeli-U.S. military actions, and calling for de-escalation, notably declining to apply its economic or defense power to help Iran. Several reasons explain China’s low-key response, including a desire not to confront Washington when Sino-American relations remain so in flux.
The PRC regularly ranks as one of Iran’s largest oil purchasers. Determining the precise volume of transfers is difficult since Chinese and other entities conceal such transactions in their official customs data, employ non-Western currencies and financial institutions, use unregistered dark ship-to-ship transfers, and exploit other means of circumventing international monitoring and Western sanctions. Nonetheless, analysts calculate that as much as ninety percent of Iranian oil exports eventually reach China.
The Chinese government regularly dismisses U.S. concerns about these oil imports. PRC officials defend their country’s trade with Iran as normal commercial relations that do not harm other countries or violate UN sanctions. After the Iranian parliament recommended closing the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, citing the potential harm to the Chinese economy, called on Beijing to press Tehran not to disrupt maritime traffic through this crucial waterway. PRC statements did warn against its closure, citing the threat to global as well as Chinese commerce, but the American request was likely superfluous. PRC policymakers know that besides Iran, China buys substantial oil from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, and other Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC), which are also important investment partners.
In 2021, Iran and China signed a 25-year Comprehensive Strategic Partnership agreement that envisaged extensive and enduring cooperation between the two countries. Even before then, Iran had joined Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. A Chinese priority has been to bring Iran’s Gulf ports within its Eurasian transportation networks. Though PRC diplomats insist that China has not transferred complete weapons systems to Iran in recent years, PRC entities have shipped ammonium and sodium perchlorate, potential precursors for manufacturing solid-fuel propellants for Iran’s ballistic missiles, as well as dual-use drones. Earlier this year, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned entities in China and Iran for orchestrating such transactions. U.S. officials also charged the PRC with aiding the Iranian-backed Houthis.
Though they affirm Iran’s right under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to produce nuclear energy and conduct nuclear-related scientific research, PRC leaders do not want Iran to seek nuclear weapons. They advocate restoration of the 2015 nuclear deal—China remains a party to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—or similar arrangement that limits Iran’s nuclear activities and removes sanctions that impeded Sino-Iranian commerce. They fear Tehran’s perceived pursuit of nuclear weapons could lead Israel or the United States to attack Iran again. In such a war, Iran could retaliate against neighboring Gulf countries, whose commercial ties with China vastly exceed those between Iran and the PRC. Though Iran executed only a limited retaliatory missile strike against the U.S. Al Udaid Air Base on June 23, Iran could launch hundreds of missiles and drones against other countries in a future war. Another path to war would be if Iran did obtain nuclear weapons; the capacity could embolden Tehran to behave more aggressively. A further PRC concern is that if Iran joined the nuclear club, additional countries could follow. If Japan and South Korea obtained nuclear deterrents, this condition would negate a critical military advantage the PRC enjoys over both countries.
Chinese officials opposed the Israeli and U.S. air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, which risked a wider war and potential regime change in Tehran. The resurgence of U.S. military power in the Middle East also undermines the PRC narrative of U.S. global decline (though PRC propagandists push alternative messaging contrasting Washington’s reckless militarism with Beijing’s benign peaceful diplomacy). As noted, moreover, the PRC and U.S. governments frequently clash over Sino-Iranian commercial ties, while China’s ties with Iran and its proxies have strained Sino-Israeli relations.
Nonetheless, when the U.S. Air Force attacked three sensitive Iranian nuclear sites on June 21, Beijing declined to confront Washington with anything but rhetoric. At the time of the U.S. attack, China was engaged in contentious trade talks with the Trump administration. More importantly, PRC officials still prefer that the United States bear the economic and diplomatic costs of denying Iran nuclear weapons. Chinese diplomats can call for compromise, sanctions relief, and win-win solutions while relying on the United States (and Israel) to hold the line against Iranian nuclear advances. PRC representatives describe Washington as the key player on Iranian nuclear issues, having much greater potential than Beijing or others to shape outcomes. During the June war, President Xi insisted that “major countries that have a special influence on parties to the conflict [i.e., the United States], should make efforts to cool down the situation, not the opposite.” Following the ceasefire, the PRC ambassador to Israel maintained that, “I think the most important thing is to try to restart or resume the negotiations between the United States and Iran."
Having the United States preoccupied with the Middle East also absorbs U.S. resources that Washington might otherwise apply to thwarting PRC ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region. Despite the Middle East’s economic importance to China, PRC policymakers do not perceive a vital national interest there that would warrant Chinese military intervention or other potentially costly interventions. Even diplomatically, though PRC officials offered to mediate the conflict, they did not press the issue after the Israeli, U.S., and even Iranian governments evinced little interest. Western analysts speculate that the Iranian military’s poor performance, along with the regime’s other flaws, has also tempered Beijing’s enthusiasm for aligning with Tehran against Tel Aviv. China will likely continue to display support for Iran while taking steps to avoid overly alienating Israel, the United States, or GCC partners anxious about Iranian intentions and capabilities.
