China has no plan for Iran
A brief history of China-Iran relations, podcast and essay recommendations, roundup of noteworthy China news
This is The China Week, a succinct roundup and analysis of what happened in the People’s Republic in the last seven days. It usually comes out midweek but was again delayed this week because I have been traveling. Which also gave me a chance to respond to the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities and China’s views on the Israel-Iran war.
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Friends in need but not in deed
China and the Iran war
On June 19, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin spoke by phone and discussed Israel’s strikes on Iran, which they both condemned. “Force is not the right way to resolve international disputes, and it will only intensify hatred and contradictions,” according to the Chinese readout (the Kremlin statement was similar).
On June 21, China’s Foreign Ministry announced that it had “organized and coordinated the evacuation of over 1,600 Chinese nationals from Iran to safety, and several hundred Chinese nationals from Israel.”
That night, just after 5pm in Washington, after midnight in the early morning hours of June 22 in Iran, the U.S. joined Israel's war against Iran with bombs from the sky and missiles from the sea, which Donald Trump said had “obliterated” Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities.
No doubt there will be some stern words at the Foreign Ministry briefing in Beijing tomorrow (Monday, June 23). But aside from calls for deescalation and ensuring the safety of its own citizens, there’s probably not much China can do.
Veteran China journalist Dexter Roberts notes that the “Iran-Israel conflict ongoing conflict is a very difficult situation for Beijing, primarily because of its very close relationship—both economically and strategically—with Iran”: Beijing has propped up Tehran by buying lots of (cheap, sanctions-busting) oil, and been a key partner in Beijing’s “effort to demonstrate in the Middle East that it is a potential alternative to the U.S. as a geopolitical player.” However “China is going to struggle to figure out how to actually play a constructive role…[and is] very unlikely to sell weapons to Iran.”
A brief history of China-Iran relations
Defense ties
In April 2022, China’s then Minister of National Defense, Wèi Fènghé 魏凤和 went to Tehran and met Iran’s former President Ebrahim Raisi. Chinese state media said “both sides agreed to further deepen cooperation in military and other areas, during a rare visit by the Chinese Defense Minister to Iran that experts say could help elevate China-Iran military ties to an unprecedented level against the backdrop of an increasingly hostile U.S. and a tumultuous global situation.” Rudaw, a website that publishes in English and several Middle Eastern languages headlined their story on the meeting “Iran seeks to expand its military cooperation with China.”
Wei Fenghe had previously been commander of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force. In 2018, he became Defense Minister and a State Councilor, until 2023, when his retirement was announced. Around September that year, rumors began circulating that he was being investigated for corruption. In 2024, both Wei and his successor Lǐ Shàngfú 李尚福 were expelled from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and now they are no doubt rotting in some kind of detention facility.
In 2024, Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash.
Xi Jinping meetings with Iranian presidents and agreements
There have been at least nine documented meetings between Xi Jinping and Iranian presidents since 2012 (Hassan Rouhani was Iranian President 2013-2021, Ebrahim Raisi from 2021 till 2024, and Masoud Pezeshkian has been president since July 2024.)
The most significant of these was probably Xi's 2016 state visit to Iran, where he originally suggested the Iran-China 25-Year Cooperation Program, for which an agreement was signed in 2021.
Economic ties and infrastructure investments
China and Iran have an important economic relationship:
Depending on whose numbers you believe, Iran imported about $5 billion worth of Chinese goods per year, and exports around $15 billion per year, mostly fossil fuels.
Under the above-mentioned Iran-China 25-Year Cooperation Program, China has committed to as much as $400 billion investment over 25 years. But reality has not caught up with those numbers: Per Reuters, “The American Enterprise Institute estimates total Chinese investment since 2007 at just under $5 billion, while Chinese commerce ministry data shows its direct investments in Iran by the end of 2023 totaled $3.9 billion.”
A commercial rail route connecting China to Iran was formally brought into operation after the first Chinese cargo train unloaded in a dry port near Tehran in May 2025. China is also investing in Iran’s domestic railway system.
China-Iran geopolitical initiatives
In 2023, China brokered an agreement in Beijing between Saudi Arabia and Iran to resume diplomatic relations re-open their embassies and missions.
In 2024, China brokered a Palestinian “national unity agreement.” It was signed by Hamas, which has been ruling Gaza since 2006 is supported by Iran; and Fatah, which began ruling the West Bank in 1994, and has been supported by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and other countries.
China's good relations with Iran—like its relations with all other Muslim countries—help Beijing to avoid criticism of Xinjiang policies, and sometimes even provide strong rhetorical support for those policies.
Chinese views and responses to the U.S./Israel-Iran war
There is an excellent compilation on Discourse Power by Tuvia Gering of “authoritative reactions” in China, and “semi- or non-authoritative reactions.”
Podcast and essay recommendations
Arthur Kroeber and Andy Rothman
Arthur Kroeber, author and economic research entrepreneur in China since 1992, gave a great interview to the buzzy Dwarkesh Podcast. The episode titled: China’s manufacturing dominance: state directives and ruthless competition.
It’s worth the two-and-half hour listen if you want to understand China’s economy today, and how it got here. One thing that particularly struck me—as a participant in the “no regulation whatsoever” period of China’s internet from 1995 to 2015—was this observation by Kroeber, in a section discussing the internet crackdowns of of 2020 to 2023:
They were also simultaneously concerned with a lot of other things that the Internet platforms were up to. So there was this broad-based regulation of the Internet sector which, weirdly for about 20 years, had operated in a complete free-for-all land of almost no regulation whatsoever, except for political censorship. Pretty much anything else you wanted to do, you could do it with very little government interference. It was a strange exception to the regulatory norm in China.
The other analysis of China’s economy I found compelling this week is by Andy Rothman. He has been advising institutional investors on China for decades, and is a bit of a permabull. I am not, but I totally agree with him on this: Trump will make China great again.
A week of no significance
Noteworthy China news
A group of pilgrims from India arrived in Tibet on June 20, “marking the resumption of pilgrimages to Mount Gang Renpoche and Lake Mapam Yun Tso in the region after a five-year hiatus,” according to a Chinese state media report. (The report refers to Tibet as “southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region.”
China is flexing its “chokehold on rare-earth magnets” with export controls as this Wall Street Journal headline puts it.
The government is scrutinizing the wildly popular cute but weird Labubu dolls. The worry is that because they are sold in “mystery boxes” where you don’t know if you’ll get a really rare one or a common one, minors might get addicted to buying them on impulse. Shares in the company that owns them, Pop Mart International, are feeling the pain.
Trump has extended the grace time on the TikTok ban by another 90 days, the third delay in enforcing the law.
At the China-Central Asia Summit on June 17, China and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, signed a treaty on “Permanent Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation,” (here in unofficial English translation by Fred Gao).
So the belt and road initiative investments in Iran are a nothing burger?
“On May 25, 2025, the first freight train from Xi’an, China, arrived at the Aprin dry port, Iran, marking the official launch of a direct rail link between the two countries. This new logistical artery significantly reduces transit times (from 30–40 days by sea to roughly 15 days by land)... "
An analysis of China-Iran relations without mentioning Uighur or Xinjiang?