June 26, 2025 | The Wall Street Journal

Where Was Xi Jinping in Iran’s Hour of Need?

Tehran expected a bulwark from Beijing. Instead it got a bystander.

Craig Singleton | China Program Senior Director and Senior Fellow

Excerpt

Seth Cropsey is right that Israeli strikes on Iran have given the U.S. a strategic opening (“Israel Hands America an Opportunity in the Mideast,” op-ed, June 17). Yet the dividend runs beyond the Gulf. China’s crisis response—limited to statements, with no tangible support for Tehran—further exposed the gap between Beijing’s great-power rhetoric and its reach, an imbalance Washington should press while the Trump-brokered cease-fire holds.

After Beijing and Tehran inked their 2021 “comprehensive partnership,” Iran expected a bulwark. It got a bystander. China’s representative to the U.N. called Israel’s raid a “dangerous precedent,” and China Daily—the Communist Party’s English-language mouthpiece—referred to the “reckless actions” of Israel’s “war machine.” But Beijing sent Tehran no drones or missile parts, extended no emergency credit and floated no credible peace plan—proof that its promises vanish when real costs loom.

Craig Singleton is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and senior director of FDD’s China Program.