As President Donald Trump prepares to depart for Beijing on Tuesday, his agenda is set with a crucial meeting with President Xi Jinping. This visit follows weeks of unsuccessful attempts by the U.S. to persuade China to use its influence to encourage Iran to comply with American demands aimed at ending a two-month conflict, or at least reopening the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
President Trump has oscillated between expressing frustration over China’s lack of action—given its status as Iran’s largest oil customer—and recognizing China’s contribution in de-escalating the situation. Last month, Beijing played a pivotal role by encouraging Tehran to re-engage in ceasefire negotiations when talks faced uncertainty.
Despite these diplomatic efforts, the White House approaches the upcoming visit with tempered expectations regarding any major shift in China’s stance towards Iran. Instead, the focus appears to be on ensuring that differences over Iran do not overshadow progress on other critical issues within the complex U.S.-China relationship, such as trade and cooperation on curbing fentanyl precursor exports.
“We don’t want this to be something that derails the broader relationship or the agreements that might come out of our meeting in Beijing,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer stated during an appearance on Bloomberg TV last week.
China has publicly maintained its desire for a resolution to the conflict and has been working discreetly to assist its ally, Pakistan, in facilitating peace talks. Additionally, Beijing has subtly communicated its dissatisfaction with Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. blockade of Iranian shipping, according to Ahmed Aboudouh of Chatham House, a specialist in China’s Middle Eastern influence.
US administration sanctioned China ahead of the trip
Beijing publicly insists that it wants to see the war end and has been working diplomatically behind the scenes to help its ally Pakistan push to broker a peace agreement. It has also sent a “subtle message of discontent to Iran” for closing the Strait of Hormuz, and to the U.S. for its blockade of Iranian shipping, said Ahmed Aboudouh, a specialist on China’s influence in the Middle East with the London-based Chatham House think tank.
“They are very cautious, risk averse, and they don’t want to be involved in anything that would drag them into something that they don’t consider their problem,” he said.
In recent days, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have stepped up their calls for China to use its influence to help reopen the strait, through which about 20% of the world’s crude flowed before the war began.
The State Department announced Friday it was sanctioning four entities, including three China-based firms, for providing sensitive satellite imagery that enables Iranian military strikes against U.S. forces in the Middle East. Earlier, the Treasury Department moved to target Chinese oil refineries accused of purchasing oil from Tehran, as well as shippers of the oil. The sanctions cut off the companies from the U.S. financial system and penalize anyone who does business with them.
Beijing has called the sanctions “illegal unilateral pressure” and enacted a blocking statute – passed in 2021 and never used until now – that prohibits any Chinese entity from recognizing or complying with the sanctions.
Ahead of Trump’s arrival, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi last week hosted his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi in Beijing. The Chinese foreign minister used the moment to defend Iran’s right to develop civilian nuclear energy.
Xi has also offered implicit criticism of the U.S. over the war. He has said that safeguarding international rule of law is paramount, adding it “must not be selectively applied or disregarded,” nor should the world be allowed to revert “to the law of the jungle.”
Both China and the US want to avoid a return to a tariff war
Trump on Monday downplayed differences with China over Iran and underscored that Xi wants to see the strait reopened. “He’d like to see it get done,” Trump said of the Chinese leader.
Like Trump, Xi also has plenty of reason to not let differences over Iran impact other facets of the relationship, analysts say. China imports about half its crude oil and almost one-third of its liquefied natural gas from Middle Eastern countries affected by the closure of the strait, according to China’s General Administration of Customs.
Beijing wants to guard against further deterioration of the U.S.-China relationship – something that would add further challenges to its economy.
“I think for Xi, a win is continued stability without surrender,” said Craig Singleton, senior director for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ China program. “He wants the summit to validate China’s superpower status, preserve the tariff predictability, and to reaffirm that Washington has to deal with Beijing on Beijing’s terms.”
Yet, since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February, there have been difficult moments between Trump and Xi that threatened to set back the relative stability in their relationship.
China has long supported Iran’s ballistic missile program and backed it with dual-use industrial components that can be used for missile production, according to the U.S. government.
Last month, Trump threatened to impose a 50% tariff on China after reports that Beijing was preparing to deliver a shipment of new air defense systems to Iran, but later backed away from the threat, claiming that he had received written assurance from Xi that he would not provide Tehran with weaponry. Days later, Trump said cryptically that the U.S. Navy had intercepted a Chinese vessel carrying a “gift” for Iran. He has not offered further explanation.
“There have been moments where it seemed like it was going to spill over,” said Patricia Kim, who co-leads the Assessing China Project at the Brookings Institution. “But I think, again, the two sides are pretty invested in not allowing this to destabilize the broader relationship.”
Both Trump and Xi may be eager to avoid creating dark economic clouds, as they did last year, when the two powers appeared on the precipice of a massive trade war.
Trump had set tariffs on Chinese goods at 145% and China announced a further tightening of rare-earth export controls that would have hurt U.S. industry – before the governments backed off from inflicting maximalist penalties on each other. The two sides reached a fragile truce in their long-running trade disputes in October.
Trump and other administration officials have made the case that the Iran conflict – particularly the closure of the strait – has caused greater harm to China and its Pacific neighbors than it has to the United States, which is far less dependent on Middle East oil.
“China is an export-driven economy. That means they depend on other countries to buy from them,” Rubio told reporters last week, making the case that it was in China’s interest for Iran to let traffic resume. “You can’t buy from them if you can’t ship it there, and you can’t buy from them if your economy is being destroyed by what Iran is doing,” he said.
But for now, China has shown little interest in wading deeper into the conflict and has appeared reluctant to be seen siding with Washington.
“It will be difficult to get the Chinese deeply involved under any circumstances,” said Kurt Campbell, a former deputy secretary of state during the Biden administration and chair of The Asia Group. “They will want to be careful because they can see political quicksand as well as the next guy.”
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