An axis of bystanders: Iran conflict reveals true nature of an alliance the West feared

If the Iranian regime survives the conflict with its sworn enemies, it will be no thanks to its powerful autocratic comrades, China and Russia.

With a fragile ceasefire now holding, after Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Tehran has emerged a more diminished and isolated figure on the international stage.

China’s President Xi Jinping and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Credit:

Yet its supporters in Beijing and Moscow proved unwilling to come to its rescue – even as US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mused openly about regime change.

If Russia’s invasion of Ukraine gave rise to a so-called new axis of CRINK powers (China, Russia, Iran and North Korea) – as many western experts argued it had, pointing to the countries’ varying levels of support for Moscow’s war efforts – then the past 12 days have demonstrated its limits.

This unofficial grouping, according to a theory popularised in Washington circles, represents an emerging “axis of upheaval”, coalescing around a shared ideological view of anti-US hegemony and is pursued through strengthening diplomatic, economic and military ties.

But when tested this month, the heavy hitters – China and Russia – offered only rhetorical support for Iran. In Beijing’s case, those statements were particularly carefully worded.

An “axis of autocracies” became an “axis of bystanders”, as Tom Miller from consultancy firm Gavekal Research put it.

With its resources tied up in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that no concrete support was coming from Moscow.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has cultivated an image of China as a responsible, great power alternative to the US – a natural friend and defender of countries in the Global South.

But in reality, China is not a heavyweight player in the Middle East, despite deepening its economic and political engagement in the region over the past decade.

Forced to choose between supporting the major Middle Eastern power that shares its goal in eroding the US-led western order, and protecting its future economic interests in the region in the event Iran collapsed, China hedged its bets.

“Beijing didn’t want to side with this regime in its potential last days,” says Ahmed Aboudouh, an expert on China’s Middle East strategy at Chatham House, a London think tank.

“China is risk-averse. It is trying to protect its interests rather than project power and influence.”

This hedging was evident in the call between Xi and Putin last week, when the Chinese leader called for a ceasefire and a negotiated peace settlement, in which Beijing could play a negotiator role, according to China’s account of the conversation. Noticeably, Xi did not echo Putin in directly condemning Israel.

Instead, Xi left it to his foreign officials, including United Nations ambassador Fu Cong, to deliver the most strident lines, accusing the US and Israel of violating Iran’s sovereignty in breach of international law.

The view from China is that the so-called axis has always been a “smear campaign by the west”, says Dr Zhou Hai, a senior fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a state-run think tank.

“China has relatively limited leverage in the region and limited influence over the countries that are in conflict,” Zhou says.

Many western experts would find some agreement with Zhou’s latter point – though would probably arrive there via different thinking.

When it comes to hard power, China doesn’t have the infrastructure or the networks the US does in the Middle East, which includes military bases and facilities spread across at least 10 countries, and built up through decades of security commitments and alliance building.

Nor does Beijing have any interest injecting itself into the region’s messy wars, having watched its chief rival get bogged down for decades, expending lives and military resources on intractable conflicts. China’s focus is on its immediate sphere of power in the Indo-Pacific, where unification with Taiwan is its core interest.

Whereas it was straightforward for Beijing to sustain Moscow’s war machine by transporting dual-use technology and other essential goods across their shared border, no such easy avenues exist to funnel support to Iran.

“I’m sure the Chinese could airlift materials and resources to Iran, but would China be willing to do so in the face of potential direct confrontation with the US?,” says Yun Sun, director of the China program at Washington’s Stimson Centre.

“With Russia, it gains China a solid and loyal partner. With Iran, what does that gain China?”

Yun says the events of the past fortnight have shown that the theory of the axis has been overstated, and a more nuanced interpretation is required to understand how these countries are aligning to undermine western interests.

“If they’re not willing to defend each other, or they’re not willing to render each other support when one of them is under military attack by the United States, you have to question, what does the axis really deliver?” she says.

China’s relationship with Iran is predominantly a transactional one, underpinned by shared disdain for US power. It buys 90 per cent of Iran’s oil, helping to sustain its economy through crippling western sanctions, but it could source this from elsewhere if required. To the extent China can exert influence over Iran, it would likely do so to protect its own interests.

If Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, choking a vital global transit route used by other major oil suppliers like Saudi Arabia (and through which China imports 45 per cent of its oil), Beijing could negotiate the safe passage for its ships alone. This is the approach it adopted last year when it cut a deal with the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels to spare Chinese ships from their attacks in the Red Sea.

Ultimately, Iran’s desperation for revenue will likely see it continue servicing China’s oil demands, even if Beijing offers little more than strongly worded statements of support.

“Iran needs China, but China doesn’t need Iran,” says Aboudouh.

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