In the early hours of Saturday, February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched the most dramatic joint military operation in years — a sweeping, coordinated air campaign against Iran codenamed Operation Epic Fury by the Pentagon and Operation Roaring Lion by the IDF. Within hours, Iran's supreme leader of nearly four decades, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was dead. The Middle East was at war.
For much of the world, the immediate shock was geopolitical. But in the chancelleries of Beijing, a second crisis was quietly unfolding: just four weeks from now, President Donald Trump is scheduled to land in China for a high-stakes summit with President Xi Jinping — the first US presidential visit to Beijing since 2017. And everything that just happened in Tehran is now hanging over that meeting.
What Just Happened — and Why China Is Furious
The strikes were not a surprise to everyone. Trump had been telegraphing his intentions for weeks, sending two carrier strike groups to the region, delivering a pointed State of the Union on February 24th, and issuing ultimatums over Iran's nuclear program that were visibly running out of road. When diplomacy in Muscat collapsed without a deal, the bombs fell.
The scale of the operation has been staggering. US B-2 bombers, Navy F/A-18s, F-35s, and waves of Tomahawk missiles struck military command centers, ballistic missile facilities, and Iranian leadership targets. Khamenei was killed. So were dozens of senior officials. Iran has retaliated with missile and drone strikes across nine countries — targeting US bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and elsewhere. Three US soldiers are confirmed dead. Iranian missiles struck the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh, killing nine. Iran's Red Crescent reports over 550 dead inside Iran. A strike on a girls' school in the city of Minab killed approximately 180 children — a number still being confirmed and one that has drawn international horror.
China's reaction has been swift and unambiguous. Foreign Minister Wang Yi called the attack "unacceptable" and condemned the "blatant killing of a sovereign leader." The Foreign Ministry issued statements calling the strikes a "grave violation of Iran's sovereignty" and accused Washington and Tel Aviv of "plunging the Middle East into an abyss of uncontrolled escalation." Beijing called for an immediate ceasefire and the resumption of dialogue.
But as harsh as the rhetoric is, Beijing has so far stopped well short of taking any concrete action in Iran's defense — and that calculated restraint tells us almost everything we need to understand about what happens next.
The Strategic Stakes for China
To understand how the Iran strikes affect US-China relations, you have to understand what Iran means to China — and what it doesn't.
Iran is not a formal ally of China. There is no mutual defense treaty, no Article 5 equivalent. What there is, however, is an extensive web of economic dependency. China purchased more than 80% of Iran's shipped oil in 2025, buying at steep discounts that benefit Chinese refiners and manufacturers. With Venezuela having already been removed from Beijing's oil supply chain following US intervention earlier this year, Iran represented China's last major source of deeply discounted crude. The disruption of that supply — whether through strikes on infrastructure, a partial Strait of Hormuz closure, or a post-regime-change realignment of Iran's energy exports — is a material economic threat to Beijing.
Some analysts are blunt about the strategic intention. "The objective is to choke out the primary source of cheap oil to China," economist Madi Kapparov of the Centre for Information Defence and Strategies told Newsweek. "A military cannot run on coal or renewables," he added, noting the particular vulnerability this creates for China's military ambitions.
There's also a reputational dimension that cuts deeper. This is the second time in three months that a close Chinese partner — first Venezuela, now Iran — has been toppled or destabilized by American military action, and Beijing did nothing to stop it. As Ross Babbage of the Strategic Forum told Newsweek: "The countries that have been authoritarian strongholds are falling over. The partners that Beijing and Moscow have are reducing in number and in strategic weight." Every government that Beijing has courted across the Global South — from Islamabad to Luanda to Phnom Penh — is now watching to see what a "comprehensive strategic partnership" with China is actually worth.
The answer, so far, is: strongly worded press releases.
Why China Is Still Playing It Cool — For Now
China's measured response to the Iran strikes reflects a tension that has defined Beijing's foreign policy posture for years: it wants to challenge American global dominance in the abstract, but it doesn't want a direct confrontation with the United States, especially not right now.
As Bloomberg noted, China has every incentive to "stand aside and position itself as a voice of stability rather than an active participant in the conflict" — particularly with the Trump-Xi summit just weeks away. The relationship between China and Iran is also considerably more lopsided than the headline "strategic partnership" language suggests. Beijing's promised investments in Iran have never fully materialized. Its military ties are limited. And China has robust relationships with Iran's Gulf rivals — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar — that would be jeopardized by a hard pivot toward Tehran.
The Chatham House think tank put it clearly: "China wants to achieve its long-term objectives without alarming Washington or undermining the relative stability in US-China relations, especially ahead of President Donald Trump's expected visit to China in April."
There's also a cynical long-game calculus at play. Chatham House argues that a weakened Iran, paradoxically, may serve China's interests: the more diplomatically and economically isolated Tehran becomes, the more dependent it will be on Beijing — and the better the terms China can extract. "The weaker the Iranian regime gets, the more dependent on China it will become," the analysis notes.
Is Trump's China Trip in Jeopardy?
This is the question every analyst in Washington and Beijing is now asking. The short answer is: probably not — but it's more complicated than it was last week.
Trump's visit to Beijing, scheduled for March 31 to April 2, was already a significant diplomatic gamble before a shot was fired in Tehran. The US Supreme Court had just struck down Trump's IEEPA-based tariffs, significantly weakening his leverage at the negotiating table. China had yet to formally confirm the dates. And Beijing's meticulous summit preparation machinery was reportedly frustrated by Washington's characteristically improvisational approach.
The Iran strikes add a new layer of friction. As the South China Morning Post reported, observers warn the conflict "could fuel fresh concerns in Beijing over Washington's global assertiveness and ambitions." The optics are genuinely awkward: Trump is asking Xi to a summit about trade and Taiwan even as American bombers are conducting regime-change operations in a country that China calls a strategic partner.
CNBC quoted Ahmed Aboudouh of Chatham House suggesting that "Beijing may seek concessions on issues more directly related to its interests, such as Taiwan and trade, in exchange for its significantly watered-down messaging on Iran." In other words, China's relative silence may be a negotiating posture — buying goodwill to spend in Beijing next month.
Most analysts still expect the visit to proceed. Both sides have too much at stake economically. The trade truce struck in October 2025 remains fragile, and both leaderships want to extend it. Xi has formally invited Trump; Trump needs the optics of a diplomatic win. The summit was already framed as a reset moment.
But the Iran crisis adds at least three specific complications:
First, the agenda will be harder to control. Iran will now be a major discussion item — and not a comfortable one. Washington will want Chinese support for its post-regime-change vision of Iran, including pressure on whatever leadership emerges in Tehran. Beijing will use the conversation to signal its opposition to unilateral US military action and to protect its future energy interests. Neither side will get what it wants, and the resulting tension could poison the broader trade conversation.
Second, Chinese domestic opinion has hardened. Former Global Times editor Hu Xijin, a reliable bellwether for Chinese nationalist sentiment, wrote on X: "The US has been led astray by Israel. While talks with a small country were still going on, it launched an unannounced war and even assassinated its leader. The world will become more chaotic." These sentiments make it harder for Xi to be photographed warmly shaking hands with Trump while Iranian missiles are still flying.
Third, the oil shock is real. Crude prices surged more than 8% in the immediate aftermath of the strikes. China is the world's largest oil importer, and nearly half of what it imports transits the Strait of Hormuz. Even a partial closure would have cascading effects on the Chinese economy — making the trade summit more urgent, but also more combustible. Beijing will arrive in March with fresh grievances about energy security, and it will want concessions.
What to Watch in the Coming Weeks
Several indicators will tell us whether the Iran crisis is a manageable disruption to the Trump-Xi relationship or something more serious:
China's UN posture. Beijing's willingness to push for a binding ceasefire resolution at the UN Security Council — as opposed to mere statements — would signal a harder break with Washington. So far, China has stuck to verbal condemnation. Watch whether that changes.
Arms to Iran. Reports have circulated that China was close to selling advanced CM-302 supersonic anti-ship missiles to Iran before the strikes. If Beijing proceeds with any meaningful military assistance to Tehran in the aftermath, the Beijing summit becomes nearly impossible to salvage. If China holds back, it's playing the long game.
Trump's language about China. Trump conspicuously avoided mentioning China in his February 24 State of the Union address. If he starts publicly tying China to Iranian oil purchases or using Iran as leverage on trade, Beijing will respond with fury.
Whether Beijing confirms the summit dates. China has not yet officially confirmed March 31–April 2. Every day of silence is a signal.
The Bigger Picture
What the Iran strikes have revealed is how deeply entangled the US-China rivalry has become with events in the Middle East — and how difficult it is for either power to fully pursue its interests without running into the other.
For China, the strikes on Iran are part of a pattern that feels deliberately threatening: Washington is systematically dismantling Beijing's network of sanctioned-state partners and discounted oil suppliers. Venezuela fell in January. Iran is burning now. The message — intended or not — is that China's energy security is only as stable as the US allows it to be.
For Washington, the Iran operation may actually create an opportunity in Beijing. A destabilized Iran that emerges under a post-theocratic government might reintegrate into global oil markets under Western conditions — cutting off Chinese access to discounted crude and forcing Beijing to buy on terms the US can influence.
Whether that plays out is uncertain. What's certain is that by the time Trump's Air Force One lands in Beijing on March 31, the conversation will be about far more than soybeans and semiconductor tariffs. The smoke over Tehran will follow him all the way to the Great Hall of the People.
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