The news of the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, continues to escalate. Insiders have revealed that senior Chinese Communist Party officials have been intensively analyzing the situation in recent days, with meeting frequencies significantly increasing and relevant departments entering a state of risk assessment. The focus of internal discussions is not the progress on the battlefield, but whether there are loosening power structures in Iran and what kind of impact such changes would have on Beijing’s existing layout in the Middle East. Sources also disclosed that the senior officials have mentioned multiple times about learning from the lessons of the collapse of the former Soviet Union.
However, several insiders within the system pointed out that the top Chinese Communist Party authorities are truly concerned not about the economic impact of this war but about the chain reactions at the political level. Mr. Liang, an insider within the system, told Dajiyuan that in recent months, there has been close communication between the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Russian side regarding the Iran issue.
“There has been frequent contact among the three parties, and Iran hopes to receive more support from Beijing and Moscow, but China and Russia have not yet released any specific signals of action. Iran is very dissatisfied but also helpless,” he said. He mentioned that Beijing maintains a restrained attitude internally to avoid premature stances.
Liang said, “Recently, I have heard that members of the Politburo Standing Committee have met multiple times to discuss the situation in the Middle East, and the specific content is kept confidential. However, one point is that the Standing Committee reminded senior officials to learn the lessons from the collapse of the former Soviet Union, a historical analogy that is not commonly seen in internal discussions. They are paying attention to the anti-government protests erupting in Iran and the potential impact on the thoughts of the Chinese people. You can see that the current online opinions tend to support the Iranian people.”
He mentioned that the disintegration of the Soviet Union has been repeatedly brought up in internal meetings as a reference for risks.
China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, recently publicly stated that an attack on Iran during negotiations is “unacceptable,” and further affirmed that “it’s even more unacceptable to promote regime change by assassinating a leader of a sovereign country.”
A report in the French newspaper “Le Monde” on Monday indicated that China is the largest buyer of Iranian oil and a significant supporter of the Iranian regime. Over the years, Beijing and Tehran have maintained cooperation in energy, infrastructure construction, and regional affairs. In the view of high-level officials, this cooperation involves not only economic interests but also strategic positioning.
Mr. Huang, an insider close to the top Chinese Communist Party officials, said that after the news of Ayatollah Khamenei’s death reached Beijing, the authorities requested reports on risk assessments from the Foreign Ministry, Commerce System, and security departments, focusing on the attitudes of the Iranian military, power transition arrangements, and reactions from surrounding countries.
“If there are significant changes in the internal structure of Iran, the balance of power in the Middle East will be disrupted, affecting China’s long-term layout in the region, including Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative,” he said. These issues are all included in the internal assessment scope.
Huang pointed out that in discussions in Beijing, energy issues are seen as one of the pressing realities. “Iran is an important source of energy for China, and energy is the foundation support of the Belt and Road Initiative in the Middle East. If oil and gas supplies are blocked, it’s not just a pricing issue but it…