China's Riddle: How Could Beijing Help End the Iran-US War?
As the crisis between Iran and the United States deepens and Washington's traditional role erodes, China has become an influential actor in reshaping the security and economic order of West Asia.
Ambassador Arjan - International Group: Today, West Asia is living in one of the most critical and dangerous moments in its history. A wide-ranging and erosive confrontation between the United States and Iran has been formed, the dimensions of which have exceeded a conventional deterrent friction and have directly targeted the fundamental arteries of international security, the global transit of goods and the stability of energy markets in the vital waterway of the Strait of Hormuz.
The failure of Washington's initial calculations to advance the scenario of a powerful and lightning victory has trapped the United States in a corrosive strategic deadlock; According to veteran diplomats such as Thomas Pickering and Trita Parsi, its continuation will impose enormous political and economic costs not only on the region, but also on the international economy.
At the heart of this story, we are witnessing a fundamental change in the perception of security order. The model of imported security and the traditional protection umbrella of Washington, which was considered the guarantor of the status quo for decades, is now faced with a severe erosion of efficiency. At such a historical moment, analysts and regional actors are looking towards Beijing; An emerging power that has moved away from the margins of conservative supervision and its gradual and normative entry into West Asian equations has created deep speculations and debates about the possibility of redefining the balance of regional powers, creating multifaceted mediation, and forming an order that is different from unilateralist Western models.
China and vital interests in regional stability
China's increasing entry into this high-risk circuit stems from a strict strategic pragmatism and explicit protection of vital national interests. For Beijing, the issue of ending the conflicts in the Middle East is not a diplomatic show or activism due to international idealism, but it is a guarantee of the survival of the industrial artery and the continuation of its economic growth. As the largest consumer and importer of crude oil in the world, China sees its energy security as dependent on the open transit channels of the Persian Gulf, especially the Strait of Hormuz. Any disruption or destruction in the structure of hydrocarbon production and export directly poses a serious risk to its growth rate, supply chain and internal financial stability.
On the other hand, the economic and geopolitical mega-project "Belt and Road" has an inseparable link with stability in the Middle East, and the escalation of conflicts can render China's billions of dollars of infrastructure investment in the Persian Gulf and North Africa ineffective. Therefore, Beijing has defined the end of the conflict as an inevitable necessity. Although some news circles misconstrued Xi Jinping's public remarks at BRICS or Beijing as a direct entry without preamble as a direct mediator between Tehran and Washington, the reality is that China's competitive advantage comes from its combined power leverage.
Unlike traditional mediators such as Muscat and Doha, Beijing is simultaneously a vital economic partner of Tehran and a rival of Washington. This geopolitical weight puts Beijing in a position where the actors on the conflict sides, if necessary, assess the political costs of violating the agreements and mechanisms approved by China as extremely high and deterrent.
Beijing's four-pronged initiative and changing the rules of the game
The most obvious transition in Chinese diplomacy shows itself in the formulation and evolution of the Chinese President's four-point initiative for peace and stability in the Middle East; A plan that reflected the evolution of Chinese leaders' approach from normative statements in April to a comprehensive and action-oriented presentation in September in Cairo. The central core of the first article of this initiative is the fundamental reconstruction of the security architecture of the region by the local actors themselves and negation of the unilateral interference of foreign hegemons. This principle emphasizes the endogenous nature of security and the transition to "regional strategic self-reliance".
The second article of this plan emphasizes the inseparability of West Asian crises. In this section, Beijing declares that without achieving a comprehensive solution to the fundamental core of tensions, especially resolving the Palestinian issue through the formation of two states and guaranteeing the legitimate rights of its people, no stable arrangements will be formed and crises will always be reproduced.
In the third article, the specific theory of China's basic development is revealed. In this section, the inseparable link of security, guaranteeing freedom of navigation in vital maritime corridors, and deepening the entanglement of economic interests, is proposed as the basis of peaceful coexistence. Finally, the fourth article is based on a stable normative framework composed of the United Nations Charter, commitment to international law, stubborn opposition to the forest law, and unilateralism. The essential difference of this initiative is to leave the problem-oriented and cross-sectional approach and try to change the "rules of the game" in the Middle East with a multilateralist and development-oriented formula.
mediation; From easing tension to ensuring agreement
The analysis of the conflict resolution process and the history of diplomacy in West Asia shows that the current deadlock between Washington and Tehran is not a product of the lack of a mediator crisis, but rather the result of the imbalance of political will and the blocking of de-escalation mechanisms. A point that Iran's diplomatic system also emphasizes by pointing to the lack of real will and goodwill in the American governing body.
Experience has shown that actors such as Oman, Qatar and, in the recent phase, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the United Nations, play a valuable facilitating role in reducing frictions, conveying messages and resolving temporary issues, such as temporary understandings and ceasefires. However, the structural limitation of this class of mediators lies in the lack of geopolitical pressure tools and objective executive guarantees to bind a superpower. This defect was clearly seen in the story of the restoration of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2023; Where the initial negotiations between Iraq and Oman laid the groundwork, but to close the final deal and ensure its stability, geopolitical weight and the presence of Beijing as a "political guarantor" were needed.
In the current complex crisis, ideas such as a four-stage agreement including a comprehensive regional ceasefire, the managed opening of transit lines and de-blockade, will only go beyond the level of academic theoretical plans when powers with the ability to impose mutual costs enter the field. Therefore, the role of actors such as Islamabad is important in monitoring the current tension and shuttle diplomacy, but in order to reach a sustainable solution that can curb heavy cases such as strategic and nuclear conflicts, the mediation system needs to rely on actors with global weight.
Finally, rereading the current developments shows that the traditional pattern of the balance of power in the Middle East has entered an inevitable transformation. With a realistic understanding of the dangers caused by the spread of war to the world economy, China is trying to create an institutional platform for the transition from the crisis-causing unipolar system to a multilateral structure without incurring direct military costs and obligations similar to the United States.
The obstacles ahead, from the strategic competition between Beijing and Washington to the deep-rooted mistrust of the countries in the region, undoubtedly make the full realization of any new architecture face serious challenges. Nevertheless, as long as the costs of continued hostilities exceed the tolerance threshold of the superpowers and the international economy, the forced convergence of Chinese and American interests in maintaining the energy market and transit security will make Beijing an influential catalyst in future arrangements.
Therefore, Beijing's four initiatives and diplomatic efforts of other actors should not be considered as a temporary political maneuver, but should be considered as the beginning of the process of hegemonic rearrangement in the Persian Gulf. An endogenous and pluralistic order in which diplomacy and economic entanglement gradually restrain the exclusive hegemony and tie the sustainable destiny of the region to the intra-regional will and multilateral balance.