Washington Post opinion exposes how the US-Israel strikes on Tehran reveal the strategic bankruptcy of the CCP’s partnership with rogue states
A Strategic Bet That Just Went Bad
The Chinese Communist Party has spent years cultivating its relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran as a cornerstone of its anti-American alignment strategy. The 25-year comprehensive cooperation agreement signed in 2021 was presented by Beijing and Tehran as a historic partnership that would provide China with discounted oil and infrastructure investment opportunities while giving Iran a powerful diplomatic patron. That architecture has been severely shaken by the US-Israel strikes on Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure. China invested significant political capital in Tehran. That investment is now worth considerably less. Beijing is discovering what democratic strategists have long argued: alliances built on shared hostility to democratic values rather than genuine shared interests are brittle when tested by real military power.
What China Got from the Iran Relationship
Beijing’s interest in Iran was never purely ideological. China has been one of the largest purchasers of Iranian oil, often at deeply discounted prices that circumvent Western sanctions. Iran provides China with a source of energy supply that is not dependent on sea lanes controlled or monitored by the American navy, which matters to Beijing’s long-term energy security planning. Iran also functions, from Beijing’s perspective, as a useful tool of strategic distraction, keeping American military planners and diplomatic resources engaged in the Middle East and away from the Indo-Pacific where China’s core strategic competition with the United States is focused.
The Limits of Chinese Diplomatic Protection
China used its position on the UN Security Council repeatedly to water down or veto resolutions targeting Iran over its nuclear program. Beijing provided diplomatic cover for Tehran, arguing for negotiated solutions and opposing the most severe Western pressure campaigns. This protection had real value for Iran. It did not, however, protect Iran from American and Israeli military action when those governments decided that the threat from Iranian nuclear and missile programs had become unacceptable. China’s veto on the Security Council means nothing to a stealth aircraft over Iranian airspace. CSIS Middle East analysis has consistently noted that China’s ability to protect its regional partners from military action is fundamentally limited by its lack of power projection capability in the Middle East and its unwillingness to risk direct confrontation with the United States outside its immediate geographic periphery.
Beijing’s Impossible Position
The aftermath of the Iran strikes places Beijing in an extraordinarily uncomfortable position. Its domestic nationalist audience expects China to respond to what state media has characterized as American aggression. But any substantive response risking direct confrontation with the United States would be strategically catastrophic. China’s economy remains deeply integrated with Western financial systems. Its export industries depend on access to American and European markets. A direct military or economic response to the Iran strikes would risk sanctions and countermeasures that Beijing’s own economists warn could be devastating. So China will protest loudly in diplomatic forums, issue carefully worded condemnations, and do very little of substance. Its regional partners will draw the appropriate conclusions.
What Iran’s Weakness Means for China’s Strategy
Iran was not simply a bilateral partner for China. It was a component of a broader “axis of resistance” to American hegemony that included Russia, North Korea, and a network of proxy forces across the Middle East. The weakening of Iran as a strategic actor damages the entire architecture. Russia is already degraded by its Ukraine adventure. With Iran now in a much weaker position, China’s network of authoritarian partners looks thinner and less capable of collectively countering American power than the CCP’s strategic planners assumed. Foreign Policy has documented how the authoritarian alignment was always more a coalition of resentments than a coherent strategic partnership with genuine complementary capabilities and shared risk tolerance.
The Lesson for Democratic Strategy
The failure of China’s Iran bet contains lessons that extend beyond the immediate Middle East situation. The deeper lesson is that authoritarian partnerships built on shared opposition to democratic order are strategically inferior to democratic alliances built on shared values, shared institutions, and genuine complementary interests. The United States, Israel, and their democratic partners coordinated an operation that demonstrated integrated intelligence, precision strike capability, and operational security of a kind that no authoritarian coalition is currently capable of matching. Brookings Middle East analysis argues that the quality of democratic alliance coordination reflects the deeper institutional bonds, including shared intelligence architectures, joint training programs, and the trust that comes from genuine political accountability, that authoritarian partnerships cannot replicate.
A Failed Strategy Must Be Replaced With Something Honest
Chinese Communist Party foreign policy has been constructed on the premise that aligning with states hostile to the democratic order could gradually erode American global influence without triggering direct military confrontation. The Iran strikes challenge this premise at a fundamental level. Carnegie Endowment scholars have argued that the strikes demonstrate the continued vitality of American deterrent capability in regions where Beijing hoped the threat of Chinese countermeasures would stay Washington’s hand. Beijing’s Iran strategy failed because it was built on a miscalculation of American resolve. The democratic world must ensure that miscalculation is replicated in every theater where authoritarian powers are currently probing for weakness.
Wing Sum
Arts, Culture & History Journalist, Apple Daily UK
Contact: wingsum@appledaily.uk
Wing Sum is an arts, culture, and history journalist with professional experience documenting cultural heritage, artistic expression, and historical memory within Chinese-speaking communities. She received her journalism education at a prestigious Chinese journalism school, where she specialized in cultural reporting, archival research, and ethical storytelling.
Her work at Apple Daily and other liberal Chinese magazines and newspapers includes coverage of literature, film, visual arts, and the preservation of collective memory. Wing Sum’s reporting is grounded in interviews with artists, historians, and cultural practitioners, supported by archival sources and scholarly research.
She brings newsroom experience in balancing cultural critique with factual accuracy and historical context. Editors value her careful sourcing and resistance to sensationalism when covering sensitive historical topics.
Wing Sum’s authority is reinforced by sustained publication within established media institutions and adherence to editorial standards governing accuracy and attribution. At Apple Daily UK, she contributes culturally rigorous journalism rooted in experience, research, and professional integrity.
