Beijing’s support has emboldened Iran and made the region more volatile.

Minxin PeiAugust 6, 2024 at 5:00 PM EDT

Reducing America’s footprint in the Middle East to focus on China is one of President Joe Biden’s top geopolitical priorities. But extricating itself from the region has proven much harder than he might have thought. As a major regional war looms on the horizon, a deeper, although indirect, cause of the recent downward spiral in the Middle East is the global contagion of the Sino-American rivalry.

Most importantly, America’s pivot to East Asia has changed Iran’s strategic calculus, while Beijing’s response to the escalating US-China rivalry has resulted in a significant increase of its support for Tehran. These two momentous developments have made the Middle East more volatile and conflict-prone.

Washington’s unambiguous and consistent declaration that China is America’s top strategic priority most likely has convinced Iranian leaders that the US is now much more reluctant to get into a direct military conflict with them. A war with Iran could bog the US down in a secondary theater and force it to divert attention and resources away from China. (The hostilities in Ukraine and the tension between the US and Russia have also strengthened Iran’s hand.)

A direct result of Iran’s new strategic calculus is a higher level of risk tolerance. As the intensifying Sino-American rivalry constrains Washington’s freedom to act in the Middle East, Iran feels that it can afford to be more aggressive without worrying about US fury. 

The immediate consequences of the new Iranian mindset became clearer after Hamas’s brutal terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Although there is no evidence of Iran’s direct involvement in that initial assault, its two regional proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, likely would not have initiated subsequent military actions against Israel without Tehran’s blessings.

Growing Chinese economic and diplomatic support has also bolstered the beleaguered Iranian regime. In March 2021, Beijing and Tehran signed an economic cooperation agreement worth $400 billion over 25 years. China has now become the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, providing a lifeline to one of the world’s most sanctioned economies. Sino-Iranian military cooperation has reached a new level, with the frequent exchange of visits of senior defense officials and joint naval drills near Iran in 2022 and 2023.

Diplomatically, China has collaborated with Russia to shield Iran from sanctions at the UN Security Council. The Sino-Russian strategic partnership, which has been significantly strengthened by Chinese economic support for Moscow since the beginning of the Ukraine war, has virtually precluded future cooperation among great powers to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities.

So far, China appears to have gained substantial benefits from the Middle East’s turmoil. Due to its strong commitments to Israel, Washington has been forced to devote enormous attention and resources to the region. In April, Congress authorized $15 billion in military aid to Tel Aviv. The Pentagon has dispatched aircraft carrier strike groups to the region since last October, while to protect shipping in the Red Sea from Houthi attacks, the Navy has deployed a sizable force and fired $1 billion worth of hi-tech munitions to interdict cheap drones and missiles. In the meantime, senior American officials have engaged in nonstop diplomatic activities to prevent the expansion of the conflict.

Besides seeing the US expending precious material resources and strategic attention, China has reaped considerable indirect benefits from the erosion of Western credibility in the Global South, which has grown highly critical of what it sees as the double standard in the way the conflict in Ukraine and the tragic humanitarian toll in Gaza are treated. 

As the Global South has become a vital theater of the Sino-American rivalry, Washington’s diminishing moral authority over its Middle East posture has probably made it easier for Beijing to convince developing countries that the US containment of China is solely motivated by a determination to preserve global hegemony, not liberal democratic ideals.

Obviously, the longer the current crisis distracts the US, the better off China will be. The most desirable situation for China is persistent high tensions short of a regional war. A dramatic escalation that disrupts China’s oil supplies and exports is much less appealing. 

But those hoping that economic self-interests would make China lean on Iran to exercise restraint should think again. Chinese influence is likely insufficient to sway Tehran in the current crisis. Even more crucially, Beijing may choose to do little to defuse the crisis as long as it believes that a potential conflagration in the Middle East would yield more long-term strategic upsides for China than for the US.

More From Bloomberg Opinion:

• China’s Problem Isn’t Its Potential But Its Politics: Minxin Pei
• Biden Must Unite G-7 Against China-Russian Axis: Andreas Kluth
• China Has Changed With Xi. It Can Change Again: Karishma Vaswani

Want more Bloomberg Opinion? OPIN <GO>. Or you can subscribe to our daily newsletter.