Why China condemns US-Israel strikes on Iran but stops short of lending military support

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BEIJING – China has condemned the

U S-Israel

strikes on Iran

and urged an immediate ceasefire, underlining its concerns about a spiralling conflict and Washington's bid to topple unfriendly foreign regimes.

The "blatant attack and killing of a leader of a sovereign state and incitement to regime change are unacceptable," said Foreign Minister Wang Yi on March 1 in a

phone call with his Russian counterpart, Mr Sergei Lavrov

.

China "resolutely opposes and strongly condemns" the attack on and

killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

, said a Foreign Ministry spokesperson in a separate stateme nt.

Mr Wang said the strikes by the United States and Israel – which came as Washington and Tehran were in the process of negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme – were unacceptable and in violation of international law.

US President Donald Trump has said that the attack on Tehran was to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, among other reasons, and called on Iranians to rise up and "take over your government".

Mr Wang added that Beijing was deeply concerned that the fighting had spread throughout the Persian Gulf and "could push the situation in the Middle East towards a dangerous abyss", he added.

China's top diplomat called for an immediate halt to military operations, a return to dialogue and negotiations, and for the international community to oppose unilateral military actions not authorised by the United Nations.

Mr Wang was speaking to Mr Lavrov at the latter's request, according to a Xinhua news agency readout of the call.

China and Russia are two of Iran's closest partners and had on Feb 28 also criticised the US-Israel strikes at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, which they and three other countries had requested.

China maintains a "comprehensive strategic partnership" with Iran, e stablished in 2016 when President Xi Jinping last visited the country.

An increasingly isolated Tehran joined China's Belt and Road Initiative in 2019, and the multilateral groupings of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in 2023 and, a year later,

the intergovernmental organisation BRICS

, of which China is one of four founding members.

China is also the largest buyer of I ranian oil, which it gets at a discount, providing Tehran with an economic lifeline amid crippling US sanctions. China's purchases accounted for more than 80 per cent of Tehran's oil exports in 2025, but formed just 13.4 per cent of Beijing's oil imports by sea.

Still, the recent attacks will hit China's economic interests in Iran and the Middle East, with a "very large impact" on energy security, said Dr Jodie Wen, an assistant research fellow at Tsinghua University's Centre for International Security and Strategy.

A closure of the the Strait of Hormuz – a critical shipping chokepoint which Iran claims to have shut –

would affect energy prices

and China's supply of oil from the Gulf, she said.

China imported almost three-quarters of the oil it consumed in 2024, with some 44 per cent of that coming from the Middle East, according to Chinese customs figures. But it likely has some buffer to work with – Beijing increased its stockpiles of crude oil in 2025, with imports rising 4.9 per cent in 2025.

Even as China speaks up in defence of Iran and calls for the shelling to stop, analysts do not expect Beijing to go furth er in lending military support to the regime.

"For China to provide military and security support to Iran – that, I believe, violates the principles of China's foreign policy," said Professor Cui Shoujun, executive director at the Centre for Middle East and African Studies at Renmin University in Beijing.

Beijing would respond "mainly through foreign policy", he said, joining Russia and other countries to call for a peaceful resolution to the Iran crisis at international organisations such as the UN.

Dr Yun Sun of the Stimson Centre, a US-based think-tank, said that if the conflict turns into a protracted war, China could provide Iran with "non-military or dua l-use support" but not go further.

"China will not provide military support," said the expert on Chinese foreign policy. "It has a good thing going with Trump, and will not pick a fight with (the) US over Iran for it."

Mr Trump

will visit China from March 31 to April 2

, the White House has said, in the first trip by a US president to Beijing in n ine years. He last met Mr Xi in Busan in October, during which they agreed to a trade truce which expires this year.

For China, the US' latest moves in Iran have echoes of its

military operation in Venezuela

earlier in 2026, when US special forces captured President Nicolas Maduro and flew him to the US to face drug charges.

"China certainly has this concern – that the US will target nations it deems hostile, or hates, with surgical strikes to seek regime change," said Renmin University's Prof Cui.

This could "become a routine tactic for the US against anti-American nations, and is definitely what China is unwilling to see", he added.

One lesson that China will draw from both episodes is that the US and Mr Trump are not "all bluster and bluff", said Associate Professor Dylan Loh, who researches Chinese foreign policy at Nanyang Technological University.

"(Mr Trump) has demonstrated time and again, rightly or wrongly, that he is prepared to use the considerable American power at his disposal to advance US interests," he said.