“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” — Sun Zi
China’s response to the Persian Gulf War mirrors its stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: strategic restraint rather than public intervention. Beijing has largely stayed silent publicly while pursuing quiet diplomacy and behind-the-scenes engagement with regional actors. Working through close ties with Pakistan and Iran, China helped nudge a US–Iran cessation of hostilities in April, though it could not restrain Israel or convert temporary pauses into durable peace. Tehran remains suspicious of short-term truces after targeted killings of its diplomats, and Washington doubts Beijing’s impartiality even as both sides publicly register competing interpretations of ceasefire terms.
Beijing’s calculus is pragmatic. It depends on uninterrupted global trade—especially energy transiting choke points such as the Strait of Hormuz—so it prefers stability. Yet the current conflict benefits China strategically: US redeployments of ships, missiles and forces to the Gulf weaken American posture in Asia, handing China more room to consolidate influence closer to home. With America expending materiel and political capital in a distant theatre, China faces fewer immediate pressures along its periphery and can continue to expand its economic reach.
Where Washington traditionally used coercion—military force, economic sanctions and high-profile mediation—Beijing favors facilitation. China’s preference for economic instruments over formal security entanglements is visible in its diplomacy: trade agreements, credit, infrastructure investment and limited political commitments, rather than alliance guarantees or security pacts that bind it militarily. Its Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation with Russia, for example, avoids mutual-defense obligations; China has only a loose treaty with North Korea. Beijing views alliances as potential liabilities, not as tools for binding friends against common threats.
The immediate geopolitical effect is a shift in strategic gravity. The US, by engaging in a messy regional war, risks accelerating the erosion of its global primacy. Its aggressive posture—attacking cities in adversary states, imposing sanctions and straining alliances—alienates partners and invites alternative alignments. European fears of Russia, and security pacts such as AUKUS, keep some Western states tethered to Washington, but many countries, including those in BRICS and others in the Global South, reassess whether American security assurances remain prudent. When Washington behaves like a rogue or performative actor, other states find Beijing’s message of steady economic partnership more attractive.
China’s economic resilience cushions it against the shocks of a Gulf conflict. Its long-term policies—rapid deployment of renewables, expansion of electric vehicle industries, large trade surpluses and substantial foreign-exchange reserves—reduce vulnerability to energy price spikes and supply disruptions. China remains the major buyer of Middle Eastern oil and is well placed to finance reconstruction and rebuild devastated infrastructure once fighting subsides. That economic leverage will deepen ties with oil producers and consumers alike, helping to tilt trade and investment away from dollar-dominated systems and toward alternative arrangements, including BRICS-led initiatives.
But China’s advantage is not unqualified. Its soft power trails that of the West and several Asian neighbors. Western cultural influence—through education, entertainment, brands and institutions—remains deeply embedded across Asia. Popular culture from Japan and South Korea also projects significant regional appeal. China’s Belt and Road Initiative has generated infrastructure, trade and obligations, but material benefits do not fully substitute for cultural attraction. Long-term influence depends on a mix of hard and soft power; China’s domestic political controls and curated culture limit the spontaneous cultural and intellectual appeal that sustains empires of the mind across generations.
Domestically, Beijing is managing the economic fallout from the Gulf conflict. Officials have capped retail fuel prices, stand ready to subsidize gasoline and diesel, and are vigilant about food prices and inflation—especially in key sectors such as pork, dairy and beef, where deflationary pressures from industrial-scale farming complicate policy. China maintains strategic reserves of oil, grain and fertilizer, and will be cautious about depleting them. Still, prolonged disruption of Middle Eastern processing capacity and global supply chains will increase costs for plastics, fertilizers, helium for chips and other inputs, affecting both developing countries and vulnerable populations worldwide. China’s nearly $1.5 trillion trade surplus and roughly $3.4 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves provide a substantial buffer, but they do not make it immune to global economic pain.
Militarily, US actions in the Gulf siphon forces and systems away from Asia, giving China more time to expand its capabilities. Pentagon simulations suggest that China could, in certain scenarios, resist US attempts to garrison Taiwan or strike Chinese bases in the South China Sea. But the United States will remain the predominant military power in the Indo-Pacific for years, and China is unlikely to provoke a direct confrontation while it consolidates economic gains. Beijing understands its limitations and prefers to avoid open conflict that could derail its domestic priorities.
Politically, China remains relatively isolated from the core Western security architecture. It lacks deep great-power partnerships beyond transactional relations and its pragmatic ties with Russia. That isolation is both a shield—reducing the chance of being dragged into others’ wars—and a handicap, because durable global influence often requires cultural and institutional ties that outlast transactional deals. To convert short-term gains into enduring leadership, China will need to loosen domestic coercion and allow more organic cultural and intellectual exchange that could generate soft power at scale.
Meanwhile, the US under its current leadership behaves like an empire in decline—engaging in costly, open-ended wars that produce destruction without clear political outcomes, echoing past misadventures from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. Such campaigns consume resources, fracture alliances and inflame long-term grievances that can produce cycles of retaliation. As Washington pursues performative demonstrations of power, it risks alienating allies and accelerating the shift toward a multipolar world.
The broader geopolitical consequence is an uneven transition. China is unlikely to replace the United States outright in the near term. Rather, a more complex multipolarity will arise in which China, India and Russia share influence across different spheres—economic, political and military. China will play the steadier economic role, leveraging trade, investment and reconstruction capacity. The US will remain a major power, but its moral authority and diplomatic coherence may be eroded by perceived recklessness.
In sum, the Persian Gulf War strengthens some of China’s medium-term strategic prospects: it undermines US capacity in Asia, enhances Beijing’s role as an economic provider and mediator, and accelerates the appeal of alternative trade and monetary groupings. Yet China’s long-term ascendancy depends on more than economic muscle and diplomatic steadiness; it will require greater cultural openness, reduced political curation and the freer circulation of ideas, artists and institutions that create lasting soft power. Until then, China’s rise will be potent but imperfect—effective in commerce and reconstruction, less so in the hearts and minds that sustain global leadership.
