Strategic patience: How China navigates the Iran war

On Saturday, 28 February 2026 — Shabbat in the Hebrew calendar, the sacred day of rest explicitly commanded in the Torah, when observant Jews are forbidden from performing any form of melacha (creative work), including something as simple as pressing an elevator button — the skies over Iran erupted with the thunder of Israeli and American precision strikes.

Operation Epic Fury was launched as a deliberate decapitation strike, resulting in the deaths of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several senior Iranian commanders, while also striking nuclear sites, missile production facilities, and command centres in a campaign designed to dismantle the Islamic Republic’s strategic infrastructure and autonomy.

Tehran responded with coordinated salvos targeting US bases from Qatar to Kuwait, alongside strikes on strategic infrastructure and, in some cases, unprecedented attacks on US diplomatic facilities, including in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

A few days into the conflict, it appears likely that Iran will adopt a strategy of attrition against its opponent. In this war — which is not a proxy conflict but a direct confrontation — both parties are expected to incur significant reputational and material losses over time.

Nonetheless, there are two points about statements made by US President Donald Trump. During his earlier 2025 campaign concerning Iran, Trump claimed that the US strikes had “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities. Now, he again cites the objective as eliminating Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The real puzzle is whether his prior assessment missed the mark entirely, or if he’s merely repackaging it for effect.

Additionally, although Trump has asserted that the US possesses the capacity to sustain military operations “forever”, it is highly unlikely that this aligns with reality — unless the US is willing to commit itself to the Middle East in the same manner it did in Afghanistan and, historically, in Vietnam. This is especially relevant considering Trump’s own expressed dissatisfaction with financing and providing funding for the war in Ukraine by Biden’s administration.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz — a vital maritime chokepoint for both the Middle East and the global economy, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil and LNG transits — represents a major pressure point for energy markets and marked a dramatic escalation. In a single night, a regional flashpoint became the hinge on which the global balance of power now turns.

For China, the world’s preeminent rising power and a cornerstone of the “East”, this is no distant conflagration. It is a stress test of Beijing’s strategic doctrine: sovereignty above intervention, economic resilience amid volatility and long-game positioning in an era of intensifying great power rivalry.

On the other hand, it is the moment the US attempts to “close the Middle Eastern theatre” once and for all and swing every freed carrier, squadron and munition stockpile toward an even more important effort: containing the rise of Beijing in the Indo-Pacific. The East is being tested in real time.

China’s public reaction was immediate, principled and unmistakably firm. Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in his telephone conversation with Russia’s Sergei Lavrov on 1 March, condemned the “blatant killing of a sovereign leader” and the overt incitement of regime change as “unacceptable” violations of the UN Charter. Beijing co-sponsored an emergency UN Security Council session, demanded an immediate ceasefire and urged all parties back to political dialogue on the nuclear file. Official advisories instructed Chinese nationals to evacuate Iran, while state media framed the strikes as reckless adventurism that solves nothing.

Yet beneath this diplomatic restraint lies a more sophisticated, layered response: material support calibrated to harden Iran’s defences without ever crossing into direct entanglement. This is classic Chinese statecraft — incremental, deniable and built for endurance.

Although China has not provided any official military assistance to Tehran, Chinese commercial satellite operator MizarVision has systematically released high-resolution imagery exposing US and allied deployments: F-22 Raptors at Ovda, the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier group off Crete, Patriot and THAAD batteries across Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain. With a constellation exceeding 500 ISR satellites, Beijing’s real-time tracking of American forces in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf hands Tehran critical situational awareness.

Iran’s deepening reliance on BeiDou navigation has already restored ballistic-missile accuracy degraded by GPS jamming, while Russian airlifts of air-defence systems provide complementary cover. This is “support without entanglement” — a distinctly Eastern style that strengthens a partner while preserving escalation control and strategic flexibility.

On a macro level, from China’s perspective, Operation Epic Fury is less about Iran per se than about America’s larger design: to liquidate secondary commitments to concentrate firepower on the primary rival. A neutralised Gulf would free carrier groups, air wings and munitions for Taiwan contingencies and operations along the first island chain. While officially unverified, the apparent neutralisation of Chinese-origin HQ-9B SAMs, JY-10/JY-26 radars and laser systems in the initial hours sends a clear signal regarding the reliability of exported systems, and effectively functions as a rehearsal for potential A2/AD challenges — tactics designed to deter or constrain adversary operations — in China’s near seas.

On a micro level, Iran’s strategic value to China extends beyond ideology. As a discounted supplier of roughly 1.38 million barrels per day (approximately 13-14% of China’s seaborne crude imports in 2025), Tehran underpins Beijing’s energy security. The overland BRI corridors through Iran provide an alternative to vulnerable maritime routes.

As a potential regional counterbalance to US influence, Iran plays a key role in Beijing’s strategic calculus. In a nutshell, a decline in Iranian leverage would inherently limit China’s options and reduce its strategic flexibility in West Asia, where it has cultivated relations with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Israel.

The economic shockwaves, meanwhile, appear to strike rapidly and harshly across the broader market. Brent crude surged above US$82 (+13%), with analysts warning that full Iranian export cessation could add another 20% and a Hormuz closure push prices toward US$108 or beyond. Besides China, this will significantly affect Europe and India as the biggest losers among major importers.

Yet here, Beijing’s unique strategic depth shines. Throughout 2025, China executed one of the most aggressive oil-conservation and stockpiling campaigns in modern history, commissioning 169 million barrels of new storage capacity across 11 sites. Total holdings now exceed 1.2 billion barrels, equivalent to 100-130 days of net imports. This was deliberate preparation for precisely this contingency, giving Beijing a formidable buffer against short- and medium-term disruptions. In classic realist fashion, China converted market softness into national resilience.

However, the respite could be temporary, with a short-term disruption of days to weeks, potentially pushing Brent crude to US$130 per barrel before easing. A closure lasting several months would likely sustain prices around US$150, driven by limited alternate routes, soaring insurance costs, and market uncertainty, with inflationary pressures and potential slowdowns in Asia. A prolonged crisis of three to six months could trigger a global recession, reshape trade and energy networks, and expose resource exporters to structural vulnerabilities.

History has seen comparable episodes, notably the series of oil shocks in the 1970s. In such scenarios, major producers — including Russia, the US, Canada, Norway and Australia — would consolidate market share. China, meanwhile, would need to accelerate energy diversification: expanding crude imports from Russia, enlarging strategic petroleum reserves and ramping renewable energy investments aligned with its carbon-neutral targets. By pressing Iran to reopen Hormuz, Beijing could mitigate these risks while stabilising global energy flows.

The crisis also carries profound implications for the architecture of multipolar institutions. For the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation — where Iran became a full member in 2023 — the events represent a live-fire test of security solidarity. The joint Russia-China diplomatic push at the UNSC, combined with precedents in intelligence and technical cooperation, may accelerate practical mechanisms: formalised intel-sharing protocols, joint exercises on energy-route protection and contingency planning for hybrid threats.

Within BRICS (Iran joined in 2024), the pressure is even sharper. The spectacle of unilateral Western kinetic action against a member state underscores the urgency of moving beyond rhetoric to tangible instruments: RMB-denominated energy trade (already standard for Iranian oil), alternative payment rails immune to secondary sanctions and collective energy-security arrangements that reduce vulnerability to chokepoint warfare. Russia’s position as swing supplier to both China and India amid Gulf turmoil further cements intra-bloc interdependence.

Realism demands acknowledgement of limits — neither SCO nor BRICS can match US-Israeli firepower — but the “test by fire” may prove catalytic, pushing these organisations toward harder-edged economic and security pacts that reflect the East’s preference for evolutionary rebalancing over revolutionary confrontation.

Why no more activist military posture from Beijing? Decision makers in China evidently calculate that this is not “their war”. Russia is preoccupied with its western frontiers; China’s core focus remains the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, where technological self-reliance and credible deterrence are non-negotiable. Direct entanglement would risk a two-front confrontation with a nuclear superpower at a delicate moment in economic recalibration. Iran’s own insistence that it needs no allied boots on the ground reinforces respect for sovereign choice. Measured, layered support — satellites, navigation, sensors — preserves influence while husbanding strength for higher-stakes contingencies.

In Sun Tzu terms, China is turning the opponent’s momentum against him. The very crisis that narrows immediate manoeuvring space in West Asia accelerates Beijing’s diversification — deeper Russian pipelines, accelerated renewables under dual-carbon targets — and the construction of a more resilient Eurasian energy-security architecture. An advanced-age Khamenei may have exerted more predictable influence and limited impulsivity than the open leadership vacuum — coupled with strong public calls for retaliation following his death — now shaping Iran’s response, a dynamic noted by strategic analysts in Beijing.

Ultimately, Operation Epic Fury crystallises the defining tension of our era: America’s effort to reshape the global order through decisive flank-clearing operations, versus China’s doctrine of strategic patience and gradual positional accumulation, particularly with an eye toward future developments in the Indo-Pacific. The coming weeks will determine the cards Trump will bring to the table during his visit to Beijing in early April — assuming, of course, that the situation surrounding Iran does not derail his meeting with Xi Jinping.

Related: Middle East turmoil: A surprising boost for China-US stability? | Why China stays measured on US-Israel strikes against Iran