Speaking to reporters before boarding his flight, Trump said: “We’re going to have a long conversation about it. I think he’s been relatively good, to be honest.” He added minutes later: “We have many things to discuss. I wouldn’t say Iran is one of them, to be honest, because we have Iran very much under control.”
Trump has alternated between publicly denouncing China for not doing enough to persuade the Islamic Republic and acknowledging that Xi’s government helped de-escalate the conflict last month by nudging Tehran toward ceasefire talks when negotiations were faltering. Before his departure, however, the White House had set low expectations that Trump would shift Xi’s posture on Iran.
Instead, the administration appeared determined to prevent the disagreement over Iran from overshadowing progress on other difficult issues in the relationship, from trade to deeper Chinese cooperation in blocking exports of fentanyl precursors.
The day before Trump’s trip, Kuwait accused Iran of sending an armed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps team to stage a failed attack earlier this month against a Kuwaiti island that is the site of a Chinese-financed port project. Iran declined to acknowledge the allegation.
The U.S. has recently intensified calls for China to use its influence to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s crude oil flowed before the war began. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters last week that China stood to lose more from the closure than the United States. “You can’t buy from them if you can’t ship it there, and you can’t buy from them if your economy is being destroyed by what Iran is doing,” Rubio said.
In recent weeks the State Department sanctioned four entities, including three China-based companies, for providing sensitive satellite imagery that the U.S. says enables Iranian military strikes against American forces in the Middle East. The Treasury Department separately sanctioned Chinese refineries it accused of purchasing Iranian oil, as well as the carriers of that oil. Beijing responded by condemning the sanctions as “unilateral illegal pressure” and invoking a law — passed in 2021 and never previously used — that prohibits any Chinese entity from recognizing or complying with the penalties.
Beijing has publicly insisted it wants the war to end and has been working diplomatically behind the scenes to help Pakistan advance a peace deal. It has also sent a “subtle message of discontent to Iran” over the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and to the United States over its blockade of Iranian shipping, said Ahmed Aboudouh, a specialist on China’s influence in the Middle East at the London-based Chatham House think tank. “They are very cautious, risk-averse, and don’t want to get involved in anything that drags them into something they don’t consider their problem,” Aboudouh said.
Ahead of Trump’s arrival, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosted his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi in Beijing last week. Wang used the meeting to defend Iran’s right to develop nuclear energy for civilian purposes. Xi has also aimed implicit criticism at the United States over the war, stating that safeguarding the international rule of law is paramount and that it “should not be applied selectively or ignored,” nor should the world be allowed to return “to the law of the jungle.”
Both leaders have reason to keep the Iran rift from spilling over into the broader relationship. Last year they appeared to be on the brink of a massive trade war after Trump set tariffs on Chinese goods at 145% and China announced additional tightening of rare-earth export controls that would have harmed U.S. industry. The two sides backed away before imposing maximalist penalties and reached a fragile truce in October, a memory that analysts say looms over the current summit.
For now, China has shown little interest in stepping deeper into the conflict and has appeared reluctant to be seen aligning with Washington. “It will be hard to get the Chinese deeply involved under any circumstances,” said Kurt Campbell, former deputy secretary of state under the Biden administration and now president of The Asia Group. “They’ll want to be careful because they can see political quicksand just like anyone else.”