The 40-day US and Israeli air campaign against Iran severely disrupted Chinese oil imports. The International Energy Agency reported that crude and oil product flows through the Strait of Hormuz plunged from around 20 million barrels per day before the war to a trickle, with traffic largely halted. Roughly a third of China’s total crude supply flows through the strait, and the closure affected shipments from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the UAE alongside Iranian flows.
The energy disruption has prompted a debate in Washington over whether the damage to Beijing’s oil imports was a strategic aim of the war. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based national security think tank, Newsweek, CNBC, and senior Republican senators say it was. Foreign Policy argues the China impact was incidental. A two-week ceasefire announced Tuesday, with talks set to begin in Islamabad on Friday, may provide an answer.
Iranian oil flows to China dropped by nearly half after the war began
Before the war, China was importing roughly 1.4 million barrels per day of Iranian crude, about 13 percent of its total oil imports, with between 80 and 90 percent of Iranian exports flowing to Chinese buyers through covert ship-to-ship transfers off the coast of Malaysia. CNBC reported that Iran continued sending crude to China through the strait even during the war, with at least 11.7 million barrels shipped since Feb. 28 according to tanker tracking firm TankerTrackers.com, but flows were running at about 1.22 million barrels per day, down from 2.16 million in February.
Two months earlier, Washington had captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a military operation and imposed a naval blockade that halted Venezuelan oil shipments, including the roughly 400,000 barrels per day that had been flowing to Chinese buyers. Trump signaled that US firms would eventually sell Venezuelan crude to global buyers once the local industry is rebuilt, but in the near term, China’s access to discounted Venezuelan oil was cut.
Foreign Policy argued on April 6 that these disruptions may prove temporary. Any successor government in Tehran will still need to sell oil, and Beijing will still be the obvious buyer.
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Washington analysts see a pattern connecting Venezuela, Iran, and China
CNBC reported as early as January that Venezuela, Iran, and Greenland were elements of a single U.S.-China playbook centered on energy and critical minerals. Dan Alamariu, chief geopolitical strategist at Alpine Macro, told CNBC the U.S.-China rivalry was “the main thread” connecting these moves.
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies identified three pressure points the war created against Beijing: its dependence on sanctioned oil, its exposure to U.S. trade investigations, and the Chinese financial institutions that process payments for sanctioned crude. The think tank urged the Trump administration to press these advantages before meeting with Xi Jinping.
Newsweek reported that the operations against Venezuela and Iran raised questions about whether Beijing can protect any of its partners from American force. Ross Babbage, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told Newsweek that when U.S. military force arrived in both countries, China could offer nothing in response, and predicted Cuba could be next.
Sen. Tom Cotton said at a Breitbart News policy event on March 26 that China and Iran share a mutual objective: preventing the United States from remaining the dominant superpower. The war was a reason to “see it through,” Cotton argued. Sen. Jim Banks, at the same event, described the administration’s moves as a deliberate sequence: tariffs, Venezuela, Iran, all aimed at “taking threats off the table that all work in tandem” with China’s interests.
Beijing condemned the Iran war but took no action against Washington
The Chinese Communist Party condemned the strikes but continued planning the Trump-Xi summit and sent no weapons to Iran. China’s foreign minister asked Iran to respect the “reasonable concerns” of Gulf energy exporters whose oil shipments were being blocked alongside Iran’s.
Chatham House, the London-based foreign affairs think tank, noted that Beijing’s behavior showed its partnerships with Iran and Venezuela rank far below maintaining its relationship with Washington. Time magazine reported that China’s security priorities remain overwhelmingly oriented toward Taiwan, India, and the South China Sea.
The FDD and Newsweek analysts point to the foreign minister’s request as evidence that the energy pressure was significant enough to force a diplomatic response. Foreign Policy is more cautious, arguing that the war disrupted China’s supply in the short term but that Beijing and Tehran will continue trading oil regardless of who governs Iran.
Islamabad talks begin Friday with the Trump-Xi summit five weeks away
The ceasefire announced Tuesday, brokered by Pakistan, paused the bombing and committed Iran to reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Vice President JD Vance is expected to lead the U.S. delegation at talks beginning Friday in Islamabad. The Trump-Xi summit, originally planned for late March, was rescheduled for May 14-15 in Beijing after Trump said he needed to stay in Washington because of the war. Whether any China-specific demands surface during the ceasefire negotiations or at the May summit will indicate how much of the Iran war’s impact on Beijing’s energy supply was a planned outcome.
