China and the Iran War: Beijing's Ambitions in the Middle East

China is one of the 21st century's most consequential nations. It has never been more important to understand how the country is governed and what its leaders and its people actually want and believe. Welcome to Pekingology, the podcast that unpecks China's evolving political system and the trajectory of China's domestic and foreign policy. I'm your host, Henrietta Levin, senior fellow with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS. This is Pekingology. I am very pleased to be joined today by Erin Glasserman, an exceptional scholar of modern China. Erin follows China's strategy in the Middle East quite closely and I'm really looking forward to a timely conversation today on China's approach to the war in Iran and what Beijing is really trying to achieve in the broader Middle East. Because this is such a timely conversation, I should put a timestamp on it. We're chatting on April 22nd right around 4 p.m. Eastern and I look forward to the massive changes that will surely unfold right around 5.15 this evening. But with that, Erin, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. I'm a big fan. Well, to start, I'm hoping you can tell us a bit about yourself. How did you end up with all of this China expertise? Well, I guess I have something of an unconventional story into China's studies. I've always been interested in studying foreign languages and for a long time that was my main point of contact just because it was so different from English and I liked the challenge. And as an undergraduate, I really thought I wanted to study the Middle East, Arabic and Islam. I was very interested in religion and politics, religion-state relations in the Middle East, and did a lot of work in that regard. It happens that I took one class kind of on a whim on Chinese history and the professor knew I was studying Arabic and Chinese and so recommended that, don't you know there are Muslims in China? You might be able to use both of your languages here and do some interesting research. And I basically became totally engrossed with that topic and did all of my independent work and then a lot of my PhD research and current academic work continues to look at Islam in China. And so that's kind of been my home base for a long time. But I'm now, or sort of over the past several years, as China's role in the Middle East has become more important. And obviously now with the various crises, most recently the war against Iran have unfolded. I think there's a lot of interesting stuff to be done looking at China's perspective there. And hopefully my view on my time spent reading how China thinks about its internal politics and the sort of complexity of its bureaucracy and decision making gives me some perspective on its foreign policy as well. I promise we will get to the war in Iran very soon. But I think it can sometimes be difficult to grasp what China is really trying to do vis-a-vis Iran without understanding its broader ambitions in the Middle East. So I'm hoping we can start there. What do you see China trying to really achieve in the Middle East and how have those goals evolved over time? I think it's important to contextualize China's approach to an interest in the region, first and foremost by saying that or by recognizing that this is an important but fundamentally secondary region for China. None of China's core interests, its kind of red line issues, Taiwan, etc. are really implicated or at stake in the region in a significant way anyway. And that basically creates a situation where on the one hand, China can basically accommodate or work with and accept a wide range of configurations of power and politics in the region. And on the other hand, to the extent that China is interested in changing certain aspects of the international system with regard to its core interests, sovereignty claims and so forth, it's not going to spend that capital and that military strength and so forth in the Middle East. That's setting a ceiling, a floor but also a ceiling of what China really wants from the region. Now, having said that, it is important and there are significant Chinese interests at stake in the region. And I tend to think of them as falling into a few buckets. I think the kind of top level most important interest is in the economic realm. You can think of it as the direct economic relationship with the region, the Middle East more generally, and then the Gulf in particular. The foundation for a long time has been energy imports from the region, from the Gulf in particular, into China to fuel its massive economy and there's huge demand there, as well as other natural resources. And then on the flip side, Chinese exports to the region, initially of a sort of lower value cheaper goods and increasingly as the region looks to decarbonize, go through the Green Revolution, advance technologically. You see a lot of advanced high value manufacturing goods also going from China to the region and that's also important. And then also in terms of the direct bilateral economic relationship for investment in both directions. And I think that's also becoming increasingly important. So that's kind of the set of economic interests. Beneath that, I would say it's also important to recognize that China has what you could think of as geoeconomic interest in the region. In other words, it's not just about what China sells or buys from the region, but also what goes through there. And China, of course, has a massive network around the globe at this point of ports, of ships, of other sort of aspects of the logistics and transportation infrastructure, which are quite important. And a lot of trade to other parts of the world flows through the region. We'll probably get to this a bit later, but just as one example, prior to the Houthi attacks in 2024, 2025 on shipping commercial and military ships in the Red Sea, something like 60% or so of Chinese exports to Europe flowed through Babelmendeb near Yemen and then Suez. And so you can just see there that it's not only about sort of the region as a destination or a source, but also a thoroughfare, and that's quite important. I think the third bucket of interest is significantly less important, but still useful to China, and that's diplomatic or political capital. We've seen over the past several years, China has sort of increasingly sought to position itself as a champion of the global South, as an alternative offering, an alternative to US-led, what it calls US-led hegemony, and the countries in the region, many of them anyway, Israel is an exception, and we can get to that too. There's a lot of alignment there. China's looking for friends and will work with countries basically as long as they work with China, acknowledge its Taiwan policy and to some extent go along with Xinjiang and don't criticize it for human rights violations against its Muslim population. China's happy to make as many friends as possible in the region. I think broadly, economic, geo-economic, and diplomatic or political are the big things that China sees at stake for it in the region. You talk about China's extensive economic game in the region, even its geopolitical, strategic goals can become economic in practice, but its security posture towards the Middle East seems more complicated. On the one hand, it seems like Beijing doesn't want to get stuck taking on any real responsibility for the naughty conflicts that can emerge in this part of the world, doesn't at all want to be a regional policeman, but at least as of a few years ago, China was trying to build a military base in the UAE. It's a big source of arms sales for the region, and Beijing did step up to mediate the very end stages of a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran a couple years ago. So what do you make of those apparent tensions in China's ambitions and its risk aversion in the region? In some ways, I think those speak to different sides of the issue. I mean, the military base, I mean, this was sort of reported back during the Biden administration that China had sought one with the UAE. My understanding is that to the extent that was indeed the case, right, I mean, of course, there are many U.S. military naval assets in the region. China has a lot at stake. So it may have been a military base aimed mostly at intelligence gathering, and it's still not the same necessarily as power projection in the way that the U.S. has a fleet stationed there. So it's a risky move relative to trade and investment, but it's still not kind of exposure in the sense of we are sending Chinese boots on the ground or ships through Hormuz, military ships anyway. China does have a military base in Djibouti, many other countries do. And of course, you know, it's dwarfed by the hundreds of bases overseas that the United States maintained. So I think, you know, even if there had been one, it would still more or less have been a drop in the bucket. As for the basically three years ago, the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, I think it speaks to the fact that China is keen to pluck the low hanging diplomatic fruit that are available. But my main understanding, and this is based on conversations with both other Americans as well as Chinese analysts of China's Middle East policy, that China didn't have to do a lot of heavy lifting in order for that agreement to happen. And that both countries kind of came to the table ready to do so. So, you know, I think China wants to play a constructive role. I think they want to do so on the cheap. And I think that's understandable. But I think it's important to sort of look for where they're really incurring a cost and not just sort of playing an appealing, but not necessarily strong role in the region. And we've seen that even more recently in terms of offering to broker an Israeli-Palestinian agreement, hosting both Hamas and Fatah, the two main factions in Palestinian politics. So it's a pattern. It may well continue as we look for more solutions diplomatically to the current crisis. In those cases in the Israel scenario, I mean, China did almost nothing to that effect. Is that, I mean, in comparison to at least the Iran-Saudi deal, which happened. Although I would say that Iran and Saudi Arabia were probably in a much better starting point rather compared to Israel, Hamas, Israel, Palestinian authority, whatever combination of actors they might have, but never did bring to the table. Feels right. So how does China look at US policy towards the Middle East and US involvement in the Middle East? So I think that there's sort of two sides to it. The big story is that it is a lesson of what to avoid. It is a parable of the costs of intervention and overextension. I don't think China was sort of inkling or sort of poised to intervene militarily or project power in the way that the United States has for well over half a century. But I think that to the extent that there was an argument to be had internally, it's a pretty clear example between Iraq, between Afghanistan, and now we see in Iran that this is a tremendously costly way of accumulating and maintaining power. And China's strategy, by contrast, is really primarily based on integrating itself into the global economy, making itself indispensable to as many countries as possible without having to really sort of pull a trigger, hopefully. Mostly it's a cautionary tale. I do think that there is an element of, maybe you could say awe at just the sheer power of the United States militarily. And it's in a very horrible way, but there is something kind of probably awesome and intimidating about the technological and military tactical capabilities. Say what you will about the strategic wisdom of the current war against Iran on the part of the United States and Israel. But I think at a tactical level, it does give China a lot, even more reason to sort of realize that the U.S. has a lot of firepower and is doesn't seem afraid or even inhibited really in using it, at least in some theaters. At least against weaker adversaries. Absolutely. And I think that's an important qualification. In looking across the region, who does Beijing view as their most important partners? There's the common DC narrative, maybe, that puts China in a bucket with Iran, often together with Russia, North Korea, sometimes Venezuela, maybe Cuba. But basically, you know, the bad guys, the pariahs of the international community can call it an axis of chaos. You can call it an axis of upheaval or what have you. There's no denying, on the one hand, that China cooperates with each of those countries to varying degrees. And certainly with North Korea and Russia cannot afford to have bad relations with them just because of sort of border issues and where China is looking to develop its navy and project power to the east and the southeast. But I think it is a gross mischaracterization of Beijing's approach to the region and strategy to suggest that they are interested in sort of deliberately fomenting chaos in order to sort of exhaust the United States. I think they may view that as a silver lining and, in other words, frankly, unfortunate and costly situation. And in some ways, I think the key distinction here is that whereas a country like Iran, to some extent, certainly won like North Korea, they derive a lot of their leverage in the international system from basically destabilizing actions, nuclear-backed brinksmanship with North Korea, proxy warfare with Iran, and to some extent the nuclear side of things as well. China, it does have some destabilizing potential. Its real strength, as I said, comes from its working with the international system and becoming part of it and indispensable to it. So I just think structurally there's a difference there. Now, where does that bring us in terms of how they see different partners in the region? Yes, they want to work with Iran. They want cheap oil, the sanctions, because they have, until at least very recently, been sort of imperfectly, you could say, enforced. China has been able to basically buy cheaper black market oil from Iran, and that's useful. And China wants to be on as good terms with as many countries as possible, basically. But China has much more significant, and I think strategically useful, relations with what are two of Iran's major arrivals and sometimes adversaries in the region, namely the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. And in terms of, certainly in terms of energy, but also investment, to some extent, joint military exercises, arms sales. So again, China's goal is really to sort of work with as many useful people in the region as possible. And those rich Gulf monarchies have a lot more to offer than Iran does. And it seems like over the course of this latest conflict, you've seen China go out of its way to appear supportive of the Gulf countries need, perhaps more than anyone else in the conflict. Attempting to appear to be sensitive to the Arab states' concerns, as well as, I mean, there's, again, we've seen they are working with Iran, but I don't think it's evidence that they are looking to empower Iran over the other countries in the region. So before we get too far into the current moment, hoping you can go a little deeper on the China-Iran relationship prior to this latest war, recognizing that those ties are maybe more transactional than ideologically motivated. The transactions have been significant over the years. So can you unpack that relationship? And it's an important question. I think that in some ways a useful starting point is sort of the post-October 7th, 2023, the Hamas attacks against Israel and the series of conflicts that have sort of cascaded out from then in Lebanon, to some extent in Syria, sort of a related set of issues in Yemen and the Red Sea, and beyond. I think that it's useful to sort of draw a line between, or to sort of ask the question of, is your understanding that China was happy with the direction of the, that the region was going in prior to October 7th, or was it unhappy with it? And I think going back to the sort of crink or axis of chaos narrative that really emphasizes China's interest in destabilizing things, I think that exaggerates things quite a bit and actually misses, and I mean this is based on reading quite closely, contemporary, that is back in early 2023, Chinese strategists, diplomats, scholars writing about these issues, they were somewhat optimistic about the trajectory of the region. They spoke of it in terms of a tide of reconciliation, that after sort of tumult of the post-Arab spring decade more or less, and to some extent emerging in the sort of post-COVID period, finally thanks, of course, they emphasized this in sort of the official narrative to things like China's brokering the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, things were really headed in the right direction. After October 7th, the narrative changes, or the diagnosis changes, and Chinese scholars start talking about another, from a tide of reconciliation to another tide or round of conflict. And I emphasize that because I think it's important to just understand how much China was not pleased with the sort of chaos that has engulfed the region since then, and it's important to sort of see that their efforts to find silver linings and kind of turn to their advantage, the current situation, is not the same as sort of viewing that the current situation is the optimum one, or that they were sort of rooting for it in any way. And if we look now at sort of how China did or did not support Iran, because of course the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in the past, whether we started with Midnight Hammer back in June, I mean the Israeli attacks in late 2024, or now the full-scale war by the U.S. and Israel, at no point really has China stepped up to support its alleged comrade for chaos, right? I mean it has basically stood by on the sidelines. It did so vis-a-vis the Houthis and Yemen. It sort of talked a big talk on sort of against Israel and with a lot of, to some people, surprising sympathy for Hamas and more generally the Palestinian cause in the aftermath of Israel's invasion and bombardment of Gaza. But it has not been the sort of stalwart supporter of Iran that you might have thought it would be if you went in thinking China's goal here is to sow chaos and to support its key ally Iran. It's an interesting perspective on the degree to which China sees opportunity or not in instability in the Middle East. I tend to agree quite strongly with your initial comment on the Middle East being important for China, but not the priority, especially in comparison to its claimed core interests like Taiwan or managing great power relations competition with the United States. I tend to therefore land in a slightly different place about what China might view as good for China when it comes to the Middle East because if there is instability that is complicating the U.S. role in the world that is distracting the U.S. from geographies more important to China, like in thinking just about how much of a full court press China made of the post-October 7th environment in trying to kind of maximize the propaganda value to undermine U.S. leadership globally. How do you see then China weighing these different priorities of like, okay, so maybe instability in the Middle East probably bad for commercial ambitions in Saudi Arabia, for example, which are important. But then how does it weigh those objectives against the bigger strategic moves that are triggered by that same instability and what that means for China and its higher priority interests? So I think with what you've said, and I think it's important to recognize that maybe saying silver lining as I did before is a bit of an understatement. There are real strategic wins that have been available to China because of the, I would say, missteps that the United States has taken in the region and the growing unfavorability toward the United States, towards Israel, especially after October 7th and everything since then and now with attacks on Iran. So I don't want to downplay the significance of those. I think that China believes that basically these are things of the United States' own making, so stepping in and sort of touting them in propaganda is, again, sort of low-hanging fruit. So yes, they're going to do it, but really the United States is making it available to China. They've gained, but it's not that they have sort of taken a big risk in doing so. Yeah, they haven't sought those opportunities there. Right. Again, yeah. Taking advantage of what? Yeah, at the risk of being repetitive. Exactly, exactly. Okay, so let's get into the current war. Israel and the United States launched a major air war against Iran in late February, and Iran has, of course, struck back attacking both American and non-American sites across the Gulf and closing the Strait of Hormuz. Now the US is maybe also closing the Strait of Hormuz, and all of this has had huge implications for global energy markets and international trade, especially in Asia, though perhaps less so in China, relatively speaking. So with all of these moving pieces, how is China looking at the conflict? I think China's view of the conflict is, first and foremost, one of we made the right call in terms of pursuing a strategy of diversification. I think diversifying whether it's supply chains, whether it's partners, we've spoke before about both Iran and its rivals in the region, UAE and Saudi Arabia, in terms of energy sources, in terms of imports and increasingly domestic production. So basically, this has led them to double down on and really drive home, I think the value of their strategy of insulating themselves from external risk to the extent possible, making it so that no foreign country can coerce them into doing anything. And autonomy is one of an autarky, economic autarky, I think have long been cornerstones of Xi Jinping's policy and are even more firmly in place after the outbreak of this current conflict. In terms of how they see other things that they're taking away, I think they are concerned, you alluded to the comparison between China and other parts of Asia. In terms of energy reserves, China is in a relatively good place. It has strategic petroleum reserves. It increasingly has a very diversified portfolio of energy sources, hydro, solar, and also partners. So it doesn't only depend on Hormuz, but it still does need, or at least a long term, being choked off from that in the long term would be quite serious. I think the real cost in the medium term for China is not only its own energy sources and supply, but what a lack of access to energy does to the economies whose markets, its own economy, increasingly depends on. And just to put that a little bit more clearly, what I mean is China's economic, and so this is again, it's a good example of how foreign policy and the domestic situation are so closely interrelated here. China's economic situation increasingly reliant on exports, as much as it has a booming technological sector, it still has low domestic consumption and relies on being able to export increasingly high value goods to the rest of the world. And as Asian economies from Pakistan to Thailand and what have you may well enter recessions or unable to be markets for those goods, that is a major source of economic strain and therefore ultimately political and social strain for China. So that I think is where the longer term strategic thinking or concerns are looking. It's a good point so that in the short term, maybe China benefits from being in a stronger economic position than its neighbors, but that quickly becomes a disadvantage when China's whole model of growth is predicated on those neighbors buying things that China makes. Yeah, and I would say, and here I'm really just maybe wrinkle in the logic I just spelled out, is that I do wonder, we'd have to see, there may be industries in which, if China is already the low cost dominant player, I could see how a recession or economic downturn in a third country harms other, harms China's competitors relatively more than it harms China. But I do think, broadly speaking, China is dependent on exports and this is not a good forecast for them if the war goes on into the summer. Though it has been impressive to see China take advantage of their relative stability, for example, offering emergency energy supplies to the Philippines and Vietnam in moves that were probably mostly symbolic, but very powerfully symbolic at a time when no one else had stepped up to help with those countries own energy shortages. Yeah, and I think it's a good example of how when your economic interests are at stake or when the economic forecast isn't good, you can still sort of shore up your diplomatic capital by appearing to be the responsible great power and when you have an opportunity to do something that maybe will be more sort of costly or harmful to other countries' interests, you can flip the script and go in the other direction. So there have been media reports over the past few days that China seriously pushed Iran to accept a ceasefire, the one that's still in place. There have also been some media reports from the same outlet saying that China is trying to ship man pads, very advanced missile systems to Iran. So on the one hand, we have a narrative of China working hard to end the conflict. On the other hand, the opposite, what do you make of that? Those are two pieces here. First, just on the question of China's role in bringing Iran to the table in Islamabad, I think that China sincerely wants this war to end and so probably did what it could to make that happen. I am not sure that there was very much that it could do or to be done by China. I recently spoke with a Chinese colleague and asked for his thoughts on the sort of rumored Chinese campaign or pressure and he actually had a very sort of blunt view, which was China did not do anything and if China had done something or could have done something, why would they have sort of worked through Pakistan? Maybe you could think of some reasons why they wouldn't want to be seen so front and center, but that is sort of one anecdotal data point that I thought was worth sharing. And in general, it would be kind of of a piece with what we saw with Saudi and Iran and some of the other sort of shallow endeavors diplomatically over the past few years. That's one piece. The other piece regarding the sort of discovery or intelligence reports that China may have sent these arms to defensive arms to Iran, it may well have happened and also it's not necessarily in tension logically with bringing Iran to the table. And I think this is maybe one point where again, the kind of our priors of what China's after in the region can kind of seep into our analysis of particular and our interpretation of particular pieces of intelligence. It's possible that China indeed sent this. It may have been that part of the deal for getting Iran to the table was provision of some sort of defensive arms like this. To give a more concrete prior example, again, back to the Houthi conflict, the Red Sea crisis in 2024, 2025, there was a lot of consternation in the Biden administration that China did not help pressure Iran to reign in the Houthis was basically I think the narrative there. Though they pressured the Houthis to leave Chinese ships specifically alone. Well, precisely. But is that evidence of China looking to prolong the conflict as it was in some ways construed in certain outlets? Or is that evidence of China very conservatively and pragmatically and self-interested looking out for its own and in exchange for Houthis, please don't hit our ships. And it's important to mention that there was a Chinese vessel that was hit in I believe March of 2024. It may well have been that sort of the cost of doing business was providing some satellite technology, dual use technology and so forth. And so obviously, China is not working with the United States. It's not trying to help the United States on this front. But I think there is a significant difference between non-cooperation and self-interested transactional behavior and seeking to prolong and deepen the conflict. So I see how you could argue that China may have a preference for the conflict to come to some kind of conclusion. But it does seem like at the very least China does not feel the kind of urgency behind that position that a Philippines or a Vietnam or even a South Korea countries that are feeling the impact of disruptions in energy markets much more immediately. And also, I think those countries have a different kind of strategic perspective on if the US is removing bad systems, missile defense systems from South Korea for use in Iran, then China and South Korea are going to have very different perspectives on whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. Is there a development you could imagine in the trajectory of the conflict that would change China's calculus on the urgency of the problem? Like what would need to change for China to feel that perhaps it should take on more responsibility, more risk for bringing the conflict to an end, or is that just not something that's going to happen? I think that, I mean, I wouldn't rule it out. I think that the type of action that China would really view as requiring a major escalation on its part is something that is really an attempt in all likelihood in this scenario by the United States to exclude China from the global and regional economy. Sort of, it could be something like pressuring. I mean, I think initially in some of the early days after the start of the war in late February, there was some discussion of this is really a move against China. I don't think that's what was going on, but in any case, there was an idea that a pro-if regime change had happened or had happened more successfully, however you want to sort of define that, and a very pro-American regime somehow had ended up in power in Tehran. Just let's go along with the hypothetical here. And then on top of that had the United States really pressured that government to push China out or otherwise kind of attempted to exclude China, that type of behavior would, I think, lead China to sort of seriously reconsider its approach, because that's really calling into question China's, from its point of view, right to participate fully as a global power in the global economy. I had a piece a couple of weeks ago in foreign policy, I think it was called Why China? No, China doesn't want a sphere of influence or spheres of influence. And it was basically arguing, I think the major source or one of the major sources of geopolitical risk and tension between the US and China, it's not China in a particular area or the United States in a particular area, so much as it is efforts by, among other things, the United States to push China out. And so we saw, I think one example of this, the Nexperia sort of affair in earlier this late last year, this is what led to the Chinese imposition of export controls on, in October, on late September, early October, on refined rare earths, right? And this was seen as a major escalation and flex on China's part. And there was a lot of discussion of why is China doing this now? And I think that it had a lot to do not with a sort of abstract desire to flex its muscle and show, hey, look what we can do. That may have been part of it, but I think the real trigger there was, you had the combination a few weeks prior of the expansion of the BIS here in the Commerce Department, Entities List. So in other words, a major expansion of Chinese entities that would be excluded from the international financial system controlled by the United States, coupled then with efforts in the Netherlands to seize control of what was a partially Chinese-owned company, Nexperia. And that type of move, the United States not only trying to push China out, but recruiting third countries, in this case the Netherlands, to push China out, that I think is where we're going to see the kind of real escalation impulse on China. And so if there were a comparable thing in the Middle East now, China can no longer buy Iranian oil or ships to China can no longer go through the Strait of Hormuz or what have you, that is a type of thing that I think would really change things. I don't think that's likely. That would be hugely costly and stupid and I don't think it's going to happen, but I think that just goes to show how high China's tolerance is for sort of staying away, waiting on the sidelines and looking to sort of swoop in after the crisis when the dust settles to again build bridges and further embed itself in the regional and global system. And so good reminder that China tends to react more severely when its pro-Kiel interests are at stake, less so because of changes to regional order or stability or like a broader trend in an energy market, but rather like the kind of dynamic you're describing is Chinese ships being disadvantaged in some systematic way. If a new regime came in Tehran and even if it was pro-American, as long as there was no rule or pressure, don't deal with China, I think China would be very happy to work with it. And we've seen throughout the region, China has been very happy to work with governments of all stripes. I mean, if you look at a little farther afield at Egypt, we had the overthrow of Mubarak and eventually the election of Muslim Brotherhood candidate, just to emphasize the ideological shift there, China quickly made a deal and was happy to work with them. And then in 2013, the overthrow and the coup led by Sisi and China again, very happy to work with them. So China will basically work with you as long as you sort of, again, on the Taiwan issue, do the dance and you don't try and exclude China. You could easily imagine China benefiting from some kind of, not that this is even likely, but some kind of regime change in Iran resulting in a better governed country where there are more economic opportunities for China. Absolutely. They would no longer have to worry. I mean, you might sort of lose the benefit of discounted oil, but there's a lot of economic opportunity. I mean, it's a tremendously resource rich, populist, educated country that China probably sees a lot of gain in. So we're expecting President Trump to travel to China next month in May for a summit with Xi Jinping. Of course, the summit was originally supposed to happen earlier in the year. Trump postponed because of the war in Iran. Now it's back on the schedule. Does the war in Iran affect how Xi and his lieutenants are thinking about this summit with Trump? I don't think we should overestimate the or overstate the impact of the war. One of the contingencies we just discussed, US attacks on Chinese ship or there's some real directly anti-China move that would of course change things. Maybe it would affect even whether the summit would be held. But in general, I think the Chinese are viewing the summit as an opportunity to figure out if there's a possibility of having some sort of stable and predictable relationship with the United States during the rest of the Trump administration. And if so, what will it take to bring that about? And so for that reason, they're not interested in probably underscoring what a problem Iran is for Trump in the meeting or embarrassing the United States or humiliating him. I think the meeting really is about figuring out can we have a floor to this relationship? From that point of view, it probably doesn't make such a big difference. Aaron, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. This was great. To our listeners, you can read more of Aaron's work in his articles of foreign affairs, foreign policy, and wherever you get your China news. As always, we would love to hear what you thought of today's conversation. You can write to us at peckingology at csas.org. And if you haven't already, please rate, review, and subscribe to the show. We'll be back in your feed soon. If you enjoyed this podcast, check out our larger suite of CSIS podcasts. You can listen to them all on major streaming platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Visit csis.org slash podcasts to see our full catalog.