Xi Jinping has just shown how the Iran war could rapidly become global

 Following the collapse of peace talks between Iran and the US in Pakistan, Donald Trump seized the initiative by declaring a naval blockade of Iran. As long as it continues, it will turn the tables on Tehran, which hitherto had itself been holding the Strait of Hormuz under its effective military control. 

The aim, presumably, is to stop Iran from exporting its oil, a crucial source of foreign currency for the regime, particularly to the regime’s great ally, China.

But something quite extraordinary has happened. China has long been the main customer for Iranian oil. Since the US assault began, Chinese tankers, under various flags, continued to sail home through the Strait of Hormuz laden with crude. But now? Reports are murky, but it appears that one tanker that had seemed to breach the US blockade has turned back into the Gulf of Oman.

China has reacted furiously to the US blockade. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, expressing the full authority of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party, has condemned it as “dangerous and irresponsible”. This followed soon after Xi, reported in Chinese state media, told the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi that: “We must not allow the world to revert to the law of the jungle.”

This, in the official language of the Chinese ruling elite, is a direct attack on the US and Israel. In the current context, it sends a signal to the world of Xi’s intentions. What would happen if Trump is able to stop all Chinese tankers into the Persian Gulf, and therefore choke off the Iranian oil supply to Beijing? Xi is making clear that China would not sit idly by. In my assessment, that could potentially include a Chinese military response.

In hindsight, this exchange may well turn out to have been an inflection point in the existential struggle that is playing out between the US and its Chinese, Russian and other authoritarian rivals for global hegemony.

Even if it doesn’t get to that, Xi is still in effect offering his clients in the Middle East, the Global South and other contested regions a choice: to abandon trust and hope in what he sees as an obsolete, chaotic global “pax Americana” and embrace China as the rising superpower in a new world order, which, with characteristic dreary prolixity, he calls the “new era of a community with a shared future for mankind”. 

Concurrently, he seeks to sway hesitant regimes in Europe and Asia in his favour as the sole defender of international law – despite Xi’s utter contempt for its application to Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea and the East China Sea.

Many observers will wonder how this great power confrontation sits with Xi’s intentions regarding Taiwan. This is not straightforward. If he faces Trump down now – and that is assuredly not a given – it will greatly strengthen Xi’s hand and further his preferred intent, which is to coerce Taiwan into giving up hope of US support and surrender without needing to be invaded.

And what does this tell us about what Xi has in mind for the planned summit with Trump in mid-May? As always, Xi’s cost-benefit calculations are unknown; but one might conclude that he would probably prefer to have no meeting at all than be obliged to welcome Trump, fresh from a mortal struggle with China’s close proxy, unchallenged and untamed.

China does not hold all the cards. Energy disruption is dragging its failing economy down faster each day. Growing dependence on Russian fuel is not something Beijing relishes. But is Xi ready to provoke Trump’s military force? World peace increasingly hangs in that balance.