The U.S. military campaign against Iran may have implications far beyond the Middle East, potentially altering the balance of power between Washington and Beijing, according to author and China analyst Geoffrey Cain.
Cain said the conflict has direct strategic consequences for China’s long-term ambitions, particularly its efforts to expand influence across the Middle East through economic investment and energy partnerships.
“For the past decade, the Chinese Communist Party has been reaching across the Middle East and into southern Europe through its Belt and Road Initiative,” Cain said. “The goal has been to build a network of countries friendly to Beijing that would provide stable energy supplies and strategic partnerships.”
The Belt and Road Initiative is a sweeping global development program launched by Chinese leader Xi Jinping that has pledged trillions of dollars for infrastructure projects including ports, roads, pipelines, power systems, and digital surveillance technologies.
Cain said the program has allowed China to deepen its economic and political ties throughout the Middle East, including in countries historically aligned with the United States.
But he argued that the current military conflict has introduced significant uncertainty into Beijing’s strategy.
“This new regional order that China has been trying to build is suddenly up in the air,” Cain said.
One of the most immediate issues is energy. China purchases roughly 80 percent of Iran’s crude oil exports, often at discounted prices, making Tehran a key supplier for Beijing’s energy needs.
Oil imports are critical for China’s economy and military planning. Cain said China’s economic growth model depends heavily on secure energy supplies, and any disruption to those supplies could complicate Beijing’s long-term strategic goals.
“Without oil there’s no economic growth,” Cain said. “And without economic growth there’s certainly no military expansion or invasion of Taiwan.”
The stakes may be particularly high ahead of an upcoming trade summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Cain said the instability in the Middle East could shift the diplomatic leverage heading into those talks.
“Xi Jinping has built his political narrative around the idea of the ‘Chinese Dream,’ a rising China reclaiming its historical power,” Cain said. “Events in the Middle East have suddenly complicated that story.”
Cain suggested the disruption to Iran’s position in the region could weaken a key pillar of China’s broader geopolitical strategy.
China’s long-term ambitions include expanding influence westward through Central Asia and the Middle East while consolidating control in the Indo-Pacific region.
Taiwan remains central to that strategy. Beijing views Taiwan as a breakaway province and has repeatedly signaled its intent to eventually bring the island under Chinese control.
Cain said China’s military ambitions in the Pacific depend heavily on reliable access to energy resources, which is why relationships with Middle Eastern oil producers have become increasingly important.
“If China cannot secure reliable oil supplies, then large-scale military operations become far more difficult,” Cain said.
However, the situation places Beijing in a delicate diplomatic position. While China has historically maintained close ties with Iran, it also depends heavily on oil imports from U.S.-aligned Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Publicly backing Iran too strongly could risk damaging those relationships.
“If Xi Jinping openly supports Iran, he risks alienating the very Gulf partners that supply much of China’s oil,” Cain said.
So far, Beijing has condemned the military strikes but has offered little concrete support for Tehran beyond rhetoric.
Cain said China is likely to tread carefully while waiting to see how the conflict unfolds.
Beyond energy and geopolitics, Cain also highlighted another dimension of China’s influence in the region: surveillance technology.
China has exported advanced monitoring systems—including facial recognition, artificial intelligence tools, and data tracking platforms—to several Middle Eastern governments.
Cain said the Chinese government first developed many of these technologies in its western region of Xinjiang, where authorities built an extensive surveillance system aimed at monitoring and controlling local populations.
“That system monitors people around the clock,” Cain said. “If someone is flagged as behaving unusually, authorities can detain them even before a crime has been committed.”
According to Cain, China has marketed similar technologies to governments across the Middle East and Central Asia, including Iran, Egypt, and several countries bordering the region.
Those surveillance networks form part of China’s broader effort to expand its political and technological influence across Eurasia.
The current conflict, however, may complicate that strategy if Iran’s ability to project power in the region is weakened.
Cain said that outcome could allow the United States to shift more strategic attention toward the Indo-Pacific, where Washington views China as its primary long-term rival.
“For China, chaos in the Middle East can sometimes be helpful because it keeps the United States tied down there,” Cain said.
If Iran’s regional power declines, he argued, the U.S. military may be able to reduce its Middle East commitments and concentrate more resources in the Pacific.
“That’s exactly what Beijing does not want,” Cain said.
The United States has maintained a dominant military presence in the Pacific since World War II, with a network of naval bases and alliances designed to deter regional aggression.
Cain said China’s leadership views those U.S. positions as obstacles to its ambitions to expand influence in the South China Sea and eventually assert control over Taiwan.
“For China to realize its vision of becoming the dominant power in the Pacific, it has to find a way to distract or weaken American influence there,” Cain said.
The unfolding conflict in the Middle East, he added, could ultimately determine whether Beijing gains or loses ground in that broader geopolitical competition.