No, the war in Iran is not about China

A closer look at the conflict's impact on the world's second largest economy

It was obvious from the very beginning of my last trip to China how much everyone was following the war in Iran. Over the next few weeks, I heard it discussed on middle class dinner tables, by taxi drivers and retired soldiers, and in local diners by young workers (‘Why is America invading Iraq?’ ‘I think it’s Iran’ ‘Oh.’)

But what struck me about these conversations was how little people were concerned for the impact of war on their own lives; their interest in it was mainly academic. By comparison, on my western news apps, I could see discussions of jet fuel shortages, petrol price hikes, household heating bills rising in the UK and elsewhere. The war was being discussed as a political issue for the British government itself, at a time when it has already battling for its survival. At one point there was even fear that Iranian missiles might even be able to strike London.

This relative nonchalance jarred with a narrative I was also seeing on X and elsewhere: that the war was ‘all about China’. The theory, and I paraphrase, seemed to go something like this: China buys over 80 per cent of Iran’s oil. By taking out Iran, President Trump’s war is a masterstroke in denying Beijing crucial energy supplies, and especially coming after Venezuela (three quarters of whose oil went to China last year). And in any case, everybody knows that Iran and China are allies, and this war tries to take out a cornerstone of the anti-American ‘axis’ that Beijing is building (also consisting of Russia and North Korea).

This theory is what the kids call ‘cope’ – some desperate grasp at rationalising an obviously undesirable situation. The truth is we now know, from reporting in the New York Times and elsewhere, that China featured little in the pre-war discussions (which were more about Jerusalem than Beijing). And the way the last seven weeks have turned out show that China has been one of the lesser victims of the war.

I take a look at the impact of the war on China in a long read for the latest Sunday Times, and how the Chinese government’s long obsession with energy security has prepared it well for this kind of external shock:

About 85 per cent of the energy consumed in China comes from within its own borders, insulated from external shocks (compared with the UK’s 57 per cent or, say, Japan’s 15 per cent). China has the world’s largest crude stockpile, which could last up to four or five months. Prices at the pump have risen, from about seven yuan per litre (76p) before the war to more than nine yuan per litre now (£1), but household energy largely comes from coal-fired plants and other domestic sources, so bills have not been hit.

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While Beijing is the main buyer of Iranian oil, of China’s total energy consumed, only 15 per cent comes from overseas, with most of the country’s energy fed by domestically produced fossil fuels (mainly coal), nuclear and renewables — and Iranian oil is a tenth of that 15 per cent. So Iran accounts for less than 2 per cent of China’s total energy consumption. Taking out the regime would have been uncomfortable for China, but hardly existential.

Diversification as a strategy means diversifying the sources of imports, as well as diversifying the sources of energy in general so as to rely less on imports altogether. As I’ve written before, this drive for security is what explains China’s seemingly paradoxical pursuit of renewables while continuing to burn coal, and one of the reasons Beijing keeps Moscow sweet even as that friendship drives a wedge in its relationship with Europe.

I also spoke to Professor Jonathan Fulton, a China-Middle East expert affiliated with the Atlantic Council and based in Abu Dhabi. He is the author of The China-MENA Newsletter, which has been following events closely. One massive problem with the axis narrative is that Beijing’s economic interests in Saudi Arabia and the UAE are actually ‘on a much broader scale than anything that China does with Iran’, he tells me.

More on all of this in the essay, including the depletion of America’s arms stockpiles (over 850 Tomahawk missiles used on Iran already) and what that means for Taiwan. I hope you have a chance to read it.

Or if audio is more your thing (true Chinese Whispers fans!) I also joined the Times’s The Story podcast on precisely this topic too, where I also mythbust the famous Zhou Enlai quote about the French Revolution…