April 20, 2026
What Chinese officials told me about Trump’s bewildering war in Iran
In Beijing, officials, think-tank scholars and business leaders see risks — and opportunities.
Something puzzling is happening on the world stage. The United States has been infuriating much of the globe by being reckless, erratic and lawless — launching unilateral military actions, roiling the global economy, upending alliances and treating long-held norms as inconveniences. And yet China, the world’s rising superpower, has not piled on with thunderous denunciations and proclaimed itself the responsible alternative to an unreliable U.S. Understanding why helps us better grasp Beijing’s long game.
I spent the past week in China and was struck by how many people there felt differently about this latest American war in the Middle East compared with the last major one. During the Iraq War, Chinese strategists seemed almost gleeful at the spectacle of the U.S. mired in the desert. This time, officials, think-tank scholars and business leaders were mostly bewildered by America’s chaotic policy, worried about it and deeply uncertain about what President Donald Trump might do next. Some of this is self-interest. China needs the oil and gas that pass through the Strait of Hormuz. More broadly, the country is not a rogue state like Russia. It understands that its growth depends on open sea lanes, functioning markets and steady rules of the game.
Chinese officials repeatedly told me — echoing Xi Jinping — that the U.S. was taking the world back to the “law of the jungle.” It’s less a moral critique than a strategic anxiety. In a globalized world, when the reigning hegemon becomes utterly unpredictable, it’s bad for everyone. Chinese officials claim their country does not want to replace the U.S. Its business leaders insisted that the U.S. remains the more innovative economy. Even though America has soured on China, those leaders continue to admire Silicon Valley, U.S. universities, and the scale and sophistication of the U.S. market.
China’s strategy is to use this crisis to build its economic strength and global influence. China is doubling down on the frontier technologies that it believes will define the next era of growth: green energy, robotics, artificial intelligence applied to real industries, advanced manufacturing and services. Its dominance in some of these sectors is already staggering. It produces 80 percent of the world’s solar panels, about 60 percent of the wind turbines and 75 percent of the batteries. It supplies 70 percent of all electric vehicles on the planet. China has used the past three economic shocks to further its dominance. During the pandemic, Chinese firms surged to supply much of the world with medical equipment. As the AI boom swelled, China became central to its physical build-out: the metals, electrical equipment, batteries, cooling systems and industrial components needed for data centers. Now the Iran war has produced a global scramble for new energy. Here again, China is the indispensable power; it dominates the green technologies — solar, wind, batteries, electric vehicles — that countries will need to reduce dependence on imported oil and gas. Beijing turns these industrial strengths into influence. It offers financing, infrastructure and supply chains. It locks countries into Chinese-made systems. It shows governments that the U.S. brings volatility while China brings equipment, credit and continuity. From 2000 to 2025, Beijing financed projects in ports in 90 countries around the world. Last month, Beijing even offered Taiwan a deal of sorts: accept peaceful reunification, and the mainland will guarantee your energy security. China’s next expansion of influence is crucial. Xi recently made explicit Beijing’s ambition to turn the renminbi into a global reserve currency. One former official explained how China would steadily expand its bond market and financial infrastructure so that, if investors came to see the U.S. as risky, they would have an alternative. Recent weeks have brought an obscure but ominous sign: Institutions such as the World Bank and the European Investment Bank have been able to issue debt at rates essentially as low as those offered by U.S. Treasurys. All this threatens to end what has been called America’s ”exorbitant privilege” of having the world’s reserve currency. If that erodes, America will get a very painful shock when its government, and its households, can no longer borrow so much so cheaply. China is using this moment to burnish its reputation but mostly to build its power. If the correlation of forces moves steadily in its favor, if the U.S. continues to squander its global influence, one day Beijing might well decide that, after all, it does want to take on the mantle of the world’s leading power. And at that point, it will be too late for Washington to do anything about it.