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Current Affairs

When it comes to the Persian Gulf, China’s top priority is economics

Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s press conference at the annual “two sessions” on March 8 was the Chinese government’s most authoritative statement on the war on…

By Samantha Johnson / March 24, 2026
Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s press conference at the annual “two sessions” on March 8 was the Chinese government’s most authoritative statement on the war on Iran since strikes began on February 28. Wang called the war one that “should not have happened” and offered five principles for resolution: respect for sovereignty, rejection of force, non-interference in internal affairs, political settlement and goodwill among major powers.
Diplomatic language aside, Wang named no concrete enforcement mechanism. China has not done much beyond dispatching special envoy Zhai Jun to the region. This attitude confirms Beijing’s persistent strategy for Middle East engagement, one centred on preserving economic access rather than shaping political trajectory, and signals what is to come of China’s Persian Gulf policy for the rest of 2026.

On the Gulf specifically, Wang stated that “the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Iran and all countries in the Gulf region should be respected and must not be violated”, a phrasing deliberately vague on whose territory should be respected. At a press conference on March 10, spokesperson Guo Jiakun declined to confirm whether Zhai Jun’s mediation would involve the US and Israel.

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While it has criticised the US and Israel for initiating hostilities, Beijing avoids committing to either side. When it comes to Iranian reprisals on its neighbours, China has struck a meeker tone, stating that Gulf nations’ territorial integrity should be respected without specifying by whom, a formulation that reads as principled neutrality that functions as a deliberate refusal to assign responsibility.

China’s Middle East engagement has been read in recent years through an ascending arc, from the Saudi-Iran rapprochement brokered in 2023 to Wang Yi’s December 2025 tour of the Gulf and the second China-Arab States Summit confirmed for later this year. The narrative is one of China graduating from economic partner to political broker. The Iran war tested whether Beijing’s involvement extended beyond economics.

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The mediation effort follows a familiar template in which China dispatches an envoy, calls for dialogue and positions itself as the responsible alternative to US unilateralism. This fits into the same model China used to help broker the Saudi-Iran rapprochement, which Beijing facilitated after Oman and Iraq had done the preliminary work.

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