American bombs are falling on Iran, but they are also intended for Beijing, writes VRT News journalist and Asia expert Tom Van de Weghe. After Venezuela, China is now losing its second major oil supplier. More than a fifth of Chinese oil imports come from sanctioned sources. Those supply lines are now under threat. The big question is whether Washington's strategy won’t achieve the exact opposite of what it intended.
How the US hopes to weaken China with a war against Iran, but risks shooting itself in the foot: Analysis by Tom Van de Weghe
In only two months, Washington has taken action against two countries that supplied cheap oil to China outside the Western sanctions’ regime. In January, it arrested Venezuelan President Maduro and took control of the Venezuelan oil fields. Now a large-scale war against Iran is under way. This pattern is no coincidence.
In American policy circles, the Iran war is openly framed as an attack on China's network of autocratic allies. The idea is that Beijing is undermining American influence worldwide through countries such as Russia, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela. By eliminating these allies one by one, Washington wants to break that chain and strategically isolate China.
Cheap oil under pressure
Last year, China imported around 1.38 million barrels of Iranian crude oil per day, accounting for approximately 13 per cent of its total oil imports. A large proportion was shipped under false flags, with Malaysian or Indonesian labels to circumvent sanctions. Dozens of millions of barrels of Iranian oil are stored in the Chinese ports of Dalian and Zhoushan. That supply is now at risk, just as China is building data centres on a massive scale to support its AI ambitions and energy demand is rising sharply.
Beijing has responded to the Iran war with remarkable restraint in recent days. Foreign Minister Wang Yi called the attacks ‘unacceptable’ and called for a ceasefire. Together with Russia, China requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. But the strongest condemnation was directed at the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei, not the wider war. At the same press conference, the Chinese ministry also called on Iran to cease military operations. Beijing is not simply acquitting Tehran of all responsibility.
This caution has everything to do with the summit planned in Beijing at the end of March between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. A possible breakthrough in the trade war is at stake. For Beijing, preserving diplomatic space for that meeting outweighs solidarity with Tehran. None of the Chinese condemnations are therefore directed straight at Trump personally.
An ally Beijing does not mourn
On Chinese social media, on Weibo, it is not so much anger about the war in the Middle East that prevails, but rather cynicism. Commentators denounce Iran's retaliatory actions as theatre. After previous Israeli attacks, Chinese opinion makers considered Iran's response to be mainly symbolic. Online, the same conclusion is repeatedly expressed: Iran has brought this situation upon itself.
This disappointment is also felt at the top of the Communist regime. Only a fraction of the 400-billion-dollar strategic partnership that China and Iran signed in 2021 has been realised. Tehran blocked Chinese projects for fear of too much outside influence.
Beijing saw a country that overestimated its regional power and abandoned its own proxy groups when it mattered. When Iran withdrew its military personnel from Yemen last year, leaving its Houthi allies in the lurch so as not to jeopardise its relationship with Washington, the Chinese were greatly surprised.
Beijing would therefore be willing to cooperate with a new regime in Tehran, whatever its political persuasion. What matters is not who is in power, but whether the oil keeps flowing. This pragmatic attitude explains why the American strategy of hitting China via Iran is less effective than Washington hopes.
The US is paying a high price
While the damage to China appears manageable, there is a growing risk that Washington is strategically weakening itself. The most tangible problem is the depletion of military resources. The Pentagon has deployed a large part of its most powerful weapon systems in the Middle East: Patriot and THAAD-missile defence systems, F-35 fighter jets, precision munitions. The same weapons that the US would need in a confrontation over Taiwan. According to recent analyses, the Pentagon still has only a quarter of the Patriot systems it needs for its own military planning.
Imagine a household emptying its entire savings account to renovate the garage while the roof is leaking. Every missile fired in the Persian Gulf is one less for the Pacific. And replenishing those stocks is complicated by an annoying detail: all those advanced weapon systems depend on gallium, a critical mineral whose global supply chain is largely controlled by China. During last year's trade war, Beijing halted exports and global industrial chains nearly ground to a halt.
While Washington drops bombs, Beijing is investing in semiconductors, artificial intelligence and clean energy. Over the past year, it has cautiously built up strategic oil reserves. In 2025, renewable sources surpassed oil as the second largest source of energy after coal.
Thousands of delegates gathered in Beijing for the annual People's Congress. The growth target has been lowered to its lowest level since 1991, but no savings have been made in high-tech industry and renewable energy. China is opting for self-sufficiency more than ever. Even if Iranian oil disappears completely, the country has reserves for at least several months and can fall back on Russia, which already accounts for more than 17 per cent of its oil imports.
The race that really matters
The fundamental question is whether the US is still playing the right game. Competition with China in the 21st century is not about territory or oil, but about semiconductors, artificial intelligence and the alliances needed to make technological ecosystems work. The more attention is focused on the Middle East, the less remains for that race.
Even in the best-case scenario for Washington, the gains are limited. Suppose Iran gets a pro-Western government. Then China loses 13 per cent of its oil imports. That is serious, but not fatal for a country that is busy reducing its dependence on fossil fuels. In the worst-case scenario, the US will become embroiled in a protracted conflict, with depleted ammunition stocks and a strategic focus that cannot be detached from the Middle East.
Just as the war in Iraq in 2003 weakened America and created space for China's rise as a world power, this conflict also threatens to suck attention and resources away from the place where the future is being decided, not in the desert of the Middle East, but in the chip factories and AI laboratories of East Asia.