On February 28, in a devastating bunker attack known as the “Epic Wrath Operation” led by the United States and Israel, Iran’s top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and members of his inner circle were killed. Subsequent airstrikes severely damaged Iran’s leadership, plunging the Islamic Republic of Iran into a chaotic state without a clear leader.
Analyst Youlun Nie from the Jamestown Foundation pointed out in a recent analysis article that the joint destruction of the Iranian regime by the US and Israel not only signifies the end of China’s “Westward Expansion” strategy but also significantly undermines its global influence and infiltration. China’s entire strategic layout in the Middle East has suffered a fatal blow.
With the shockwaves of the Iran situation spreading, China’s energy security is facing immediate collapse, defense exports are collapsing, and the Belt and Road Initiative is falling apart. The true pain for China goes beyond having to pay higher prices for oil in the future. Without Iran as a partner, China is forced to turn to the global spot market, paying surging premiums due to the war and settling massive transactions in dollars, rapidly depleting its strategic foreign exchange reserves.
The collapse of the Iranian regime also deals a heavy blow to China’s military exports. China’s weapons exports have steadily increased in recent years, bringing substantial income to China and serving as a key mechanism for China to spread its technological standards and political control to third world countries.
The swift strike by the US and Israel not only shattered billions of dollars’ worth of Sino-Iranian military sales contracts, particularly the J-10C fighter jets and CM-302 supersonic anti-ship missile contracts, but also severely damaged China’s military industry reputation.
In recent weeks, the radar and surveillance systems provided by China faced complete failure against US military actions in Venezuela. The HQ-9 air defense system built by China for Iran also failed to protect Ayatollah Khamenei’s head in the decisive strike. Countries in the Southern Hemisphere and potential clients of China’s military equipment have discovered that Chinese military equipment is unable to withstand Western attacks.
Additionally, due to rampant corruption within the Chinese military, missile propellants have been tampered with and launch failures have been frequent, resulting in repeated internal purges. This internal and external dilemma will raise doubts among foreign buyers regarding the quality and efficiency of Chinese weapons, ultimately shattering China’s ambitions as a leading global arms supplier.
For over a decade, the Belt and Road Initiative has been the core of Xi Jinping’s foreign policy, with the Middle East playing a critical role as a geopolitical and geoeconomic hub. With the collapse of the Iranian government, China’s $400 billion 25-year energy and infrastructure investment project in Iran has come to a standstill, causing massive losses to Chinese state-owned enterprises. Geopolitically, the consequences are systemic. The westward expansion strategy of the Belt and Road Initiative suffers a devastating blow with the collapse of the Iranian government, Russian sanctions, and the constraints of the Russia-Ukraine war, leading to structural defeat for China’s ambitions in the Eurasian continent.
Viewed from the macro perspective of great power competition, the continued weakening of Iran marks a profound shift in US strategy and suggests that China is about to face a nightmare. For the past 20 years, the Middle East has been a strategic quagmire, severely constraining US military strength and providing China an opportunity to modernize its military and increase pressure in the Taiwan Strait.
With the systematic dismantling of the Iranian threat, the US military no longer has the strategic burden of maintaining the Persian Gulf and can swiftly deploy powerful carrier strike groups and air forces to the Indo-Pacific region to counter its formidable adversary, China.
Simultaneously, as the Chinese military continues combating corruption, it is at its most vulnerable, with its combat readiness significantly weakened. By the time the dust settles in the Middle East and China completes its internal purges, the US military may have already completed substantial military deployments in the Asia-Pacific region. The “Davidson’s Window” for China to successfully annex Taiwan may be completely closed, leaving China as a cornered animal within the US military encirclement.
The greatest loss caused by the chaos in Iran for China is the complete shattering of China’s long-cultivated image as a “reliable security protector.” Over the past decade, China has worked diligently in countries in the Southern Hemisphere like Africa and South America, positioning itself as the “savior” that balances Western hegemony.
However, when China’s staunch ally Maduro was arrested by the US military and Ayatollah Khamenei was beheaded, China only made empty verbal gestures, leaving its other developing country allies disappointed and disillusioned, resulting in a loss of reputation for China.
When netizens questioned why China did not intervene to help Iran, the prevailing sentiment was that China is merely a paper tiger, relying solely on resource exploitation and debt-trap diplomacy to gain economic benefits, lacking the intention and ability to project hard power to aid and protect its struggling allies.
Many underdeveloped countries that relied on and trusted China in the past have now awakened to the reality that aligning with China was futile, leading them to reassess and diminish the geopolitical status of their alliances with China. This disillusionment foretells a irreversible weakening of China’s global influence and signals the end of China’s ambition to lead a unified anti-Western multipolar world order.