Pakistan, China and the Middle East crisis

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met on May 13 and 14 for a two-day session. When the visit was planned, they were meant to focus on trade issues. But for the May 2026 summit, the focus was on war in Iran launched by Trump on February 28 with little planning and no indication of what he was hoping to achieve. There is little doubt that the war, which has now developed into skirmishes involving several states in the area, figured prominently in the Beijing talks. China, like Pakistan, is worried about how its own interests in the area would be adversely affected by this ongoing Middle East war. The two countries have close relations and have been involved in persuading Iran to reach a deal with Washington to end the war.

Pakistan hosted one round of US-Iran peace talks in Islamabad. On the American side, the negotiation was led by Vice-President JD Vance who was accompanied by Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff, who has been involved in Middle East affairs. Vance held uninterrupted talks with the Iranian side in an Islamabad hotel for 21 hours, but the long talks did not bring the two sides closer. Another round of talks was planned, and the American team was on its way to Islamabad when negotiations between Washington and Tehran broke down. Pakistan, along with China, had been working hard to find a way to bring the two sides to agree on a plan of action that would resolve the issues that were being pursued by the two warring capitals.

On March 31, China and Pakistan issued a five-point statement calling for an immediate ceasefire, peace talks, the protection of civilian sites, an opening of the Strait of Hormuz and respect for the United Nations Charter. The reference to the UN document was to prevent the United States and Iran from targeting civilian populations. On April 8, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked five countries in a social media post for their help in sealing the ceasefire deal. China topped the list of countries thanked by the Pakistani prime minister.

China joined Russia in casting its veto on a UN resolution that would have allowed for multinational military action to force Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passageway for the flow of oil to countries in the Middle East and Asia. However, some informed analysts believe that China's appetite for expanding its diplomatic role in the Middle East is limited. "Beijing's priorities are more practical," said Ryan Hass, a former career diplomat and White House national security official now at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "They want reliable access to energy and inputs and secure markets for their exports. They do not want to accept another region's security challenges as their own problem."

Across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are trying to get China involved in playing a bigger role in the Middle East. On April 20, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman called China's Xi Jinping to talk about the war. He is said to have asked China to press Iran to refrain from attacking sites in his country. China has a history of involvement in the affairs of the region. In 2023, Beijing helped finalise a diplomatic opening between Iran and Saudi Arabia after those countries had talked about further engagement for years. According to Saudi officials, China is seen in Riyadh as a vested party in relations between their country and Iran.

However, China - as is the case with other possible interlocutors - is uncertain about the leadership situation in Tehran. After air attacks by Israel and the United States killed the country's top leadership, political power appears to have gone to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, which is interested in developing close ties with Beijing once the war with the United States ends. The relationship with China would pattern on Beijing's ties with Pakistan. China has given military aid to Pakistan over many years. It has helped Pakistan manufacture battle tanks and fighter aircraft. In the words of Ali Vaez, the director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group, "I see more and more voices affiliated with the IRGC, now the real power in Iran, openly saying that the failure of Iran has been that it was too shy about aligning itself with China and Russia and was instead trying to preserve its independence. They say they need to mortgage out part of the country to end up where Pakistan is."

The reference to Pakistan relates to the major highway Beijing has built connecting its Xinjiang Autonomous Region with the Pakistani seaport at Gwadar. Called the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or the CPEC, there are plans to extend it to Afghanistan and the countries in Central Asia. These countries were once part of what was then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR. According to a study done by Pentagon, using satellite imagery, these countries are rich in mineral resources. Accessing them through a road that runs across Pakistan would allow China to exploit these mineral riches and send the processed material by road to China. China already has a large mineral extracting project near Kabul.

There is now talk in both countries about CPEC-2 which would provide China access to the sea not only through the Pakistani port of Gwadar but also through the Iranian port of Chabahar. This way China would have the alternative option to bypass operations in the Arabian Sea that Americans are using their navy to blockade. It could use the road connection to bring energy and other items to China from Iran. With CPEC-2, Pakistan could get closely aligned not only with China but also with the Middle East and Central Asia.