As Iran’s clerical rulers face one of the biggest threats to their grip on power in years and the United States threatens potential military action in support of Iranian protesters, China has few options -- and growing hesitancy -- to help its partner in Tehran.
Beijing’s inaction reflects the pragmatic nature of their alignment, which is based more on convenience rather than goodwill or trust, experts say.
Those limits have been on display as the Iranian authorities wage an unprecedented and bloody crackdown on mass antiestablishment protests, leading US President Donald Trump to impose new tariffs and threaten "very strong action" against the Middle Eastern country.
“Iran is an important partner to China, but I don’t think Beijing is particularly wedded to the Islamic Republic,” wrote Jonathan Fulton, an expert on China in the Middle East at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi in his newsletter tracking China in the region.
Beijing’s response to events in Iran has been confined to decrying Trump’s announcement that Washington would impose an additional 25 percent tariff on countries that do business with Iran.
“We have always believed that there are no winners in a tariff war, and China will resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on January 13.
A day earlier, Mao said that China hoped “the Iranian government and people will overcome the current difficulties and maintain national stability” when asked about Tehran's crackdown that has killed at least 2,400 protesters, according to rights groups.
Both countries have found common ground in a shared desire to push back the United States, while China has become an economic lifeline for heavily-sanctioned Iran.
China is Iran’s top trading partner, buying an estimated 90 percent of its oil exports, while roughly 12 percent of China’s oil imports came from Iran, although estimates are imprecise given that Iranian oil flows through a shadow fleet of disguised vessels and paid for through financial networks that avoid the traditional banking system.
“There is utility [for China] in a large anti-Western government in the Gulf, but whether that’s run by the Ayatollah or the military or a council of elders, I think Beijing is largely agnostic. As long as the energy flows, they’re fine with it,” Fulton said.
China’s Buffer Against Oil Shocks
While oil has formed the bedrock of the China-Iran relationship in recent years, it has also exposed the cracks in their partnership, Joseph Webster, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, told RFE/RL.
“China has been preparing for shocks to the oil market for some time and has been stockpiling crude oil since 2024,” he said. “The bottom line is that Chinese refiners have import cover and could replace Iranian oil. But Iran losing access to imported goods from China could add to the economic crisis and cause an even greater inflationary spiral.”
According to Kpler, a commodity intelligence firm, Chinese refineries have stockpiled between 1.2 and 1.4 billion barrels of oil as of the end of 2025.
Webster says that would account for three months of cover if imports of oil to China were cut off. He adds that a substantial amount of Iranian oil remains in floating storage off the coast of Malaysia, which “China would likely access a significant share of if needed, further buffering its oil market from geopolitical supply shocks.”
Adding to that buffer is China’s strategy of diversifying its oil imports to prevent being overly dependent on one source, with Beijing also relying on Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Malaysia.
Even with the recent disruptions brought by Washington’s strike on Venezuela that captured Nicolas Maduro and Trump’s announcement that the United States would oversee its oil industry, China’s energy imports remain stable.
In contrast, China officially exported $8.9 billion in goods to Iran in 2024, which amounts to a small portion of Beijing’s $6 trillion in global trade.
Iranian oil has limited buyers due to US sanctions aimed at cutting off funding to Tehran's nuclear program and Beijing’s purchases have helped prop up the country’s economy. This has taken place through an oil-for-goods bartering system that has led to the Iranian market being flooded with Chinese manufactured goods and technology while China has bought up oil at substantial discounts.
An Uneven Lifeline From Beijing
But that energy link has not translated into broader support for Iran amid the economic crisis and street protests that erupted in late December.
Amid a communication network blackout in Iran and a mounting death toll from a state crackdown, Tehran’s ambassador in Beijing, Abdolreza Rahmani-Fazli, made headlines in China when he told the state-owned Phoenix TV on January 8 that Iran would safeguard Chinese businesses and nationals, and hopes to receive help from China and other “friendly countries.”
That appeal was met with harsh criticism on China’s censored and tightly-monitored social media platforms, Tuvia Gering, a China researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel, documented in his newsletter Discourse Power.
In particular, a post by Zhanhao, a popular nationalist-leaning account on WeChat, took aim at Rahmani-Fazli’s comments.
“Iran continues to expect China to take the bullet for it,” the post said. “That’s pure fantasy!”
Beijing and Tehran have looked to deepen their relationship in recent years, with China backing Iran’s bids to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2023 and the BRICS in 2024. In December, Iran hosted troops from China, Russia, and seven other countries for counterterrorism drills organized under the SCO.
But other efforts to forge closer bonds have also led to friction.
In 2021, Iran and China announced a 25-year economic cooperation agreement that was met with skepticism and protests by the Iranian public. Iranian critics are quick to point out that the text of the partnership agreement still has not been publicly disclosed and Iranian officials have urged China to do more to implement the deal, which has seen limited results amid continuing international sanctions.
The limits of China’s backing were also on display in June after Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iran and Beijing did little to come to Iran’s aid.
“It confirms what some Iran-China watchers have warned for years,” Gering wrote in his newsletter referring to the muted Chinese reaction to the protests. “Tehran and Beijing do not see the relationship in the same way.”
