A look below at how and what China wants and is doing for and with Iran…..
Also….
The Trump admin goes to the media to make it known that the US Navy IS providing some protection for some ships to make it thru the Strait of Hormuz….
The Navy effort IS extensive and Expensive …
Brookings…..
The China/Iran angle……
As the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran enters its sixth month, Washington’s debate about China and the Iran war often begins with a deceptively simple question: Is China winning or losing from the conflict? Some argue that the war is a strategic gift to Beijing, weakening U.S. influence in the Middle East while strengthening China’s position as a diplomatic and economic power. Others contend that because Iran is an important Chinese partner, the weakening of Iran must ultimately weaken China as well.
In practice, China does not see the war primarily as a contest over who gains or loses influence. Its more immediate concern is whether the conflict produces consequences that threaten China’s economic interests, strategic environment, or room for maneuver. Beijing’s approach is therefore less about exploiting the war than about managing its fallout: containing spillover, reducing risks, diversifying dependencies, avoiding strategic entanglement, and finding areas of overlap. The central question is not who wins or loses, but what kind of regional and international order emerges from the conflict—and how much instability China will have to absorb.
Contain the spillover
China has powerful incentives to see the conflict end as quickly as possible. As the world’s largest crude oil importer, China imported roughly 11.6 million barrels per day in 2025 and is highly exposed to disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. In June 2026, China’s crude imports fell to 7.12 million barrels per day, the lowest level in almost a decade. Yet Beijing has not faced an immediate energy crisis. Inventories, procurement adjustments, and alternative suppliers—including Russia—have given China considerable room to absorb temporary disruptions.
The bigger concern is systemic. Prolonged conflict can destabilize energy prices, disrupt shipping, increase insurance costs, damage regional infrastructure, and generate broader supply-chain shocks. The Strait of Hormuz is part of the infrastructure supporting the global trading system.
For Beijing, therefore, the problem is not simply energy scarcity. It is the possibility that a regional war could spill over into wider disruption of global trade and supply chains. China’s interest in ending the war is fundamentally an interest in stability.
Reduce the risks
There is a widespread assumption in Washington that because China helped facilitate the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement in 2023, Beijing should now be able to “deliver peace” in the Middle East. This greatly overestimates both China’s capabilities and its ambitions.
China is trying to help end the conflict, but it is doing so primarily through diplomatic de-escalation rather than coercive intervention. The reason is straightforward. China does not possess the alliance network, military infrastructure, or regional command structure that the United States has developed over decades. More importantly, Beijing has little interest in assuming responsibility for being the Middle East’s security guarantor.
The regional security landscape is itself changing. On August 7, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed a joint defense agreement. Some observers have already compared the arrangement to a potential “Middle Eastern NATO.” The analogy is premature, but it reflects a broader regional desire to diversify security partnerships rather than rely entirely on a single external security provider….
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The Guardian…..
Iran’s foreign minister has dismissed the threat of a fresh round of US economic sanctions as a “desperate” ploy, even as its president acknowledged that the Iranian people are facing “many problems” amid Washington’s efforts to isolate and debilitate the country’s economy.
Last week, Donald Trump announced a new campaign to increase the pressure on the Iranian economy, calling it “the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country”. The US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, is expected to announce further punitive economic measures on Iran – which he has described as “the toughest sanctions in history” – on Monday.
Despite the threats, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, insisted the country remained unbowed. “The fact that [US leaders] have moved on from military operations … to bringing up the same old plans shows that they are desperate,” he said in a video posted on Telegram on Sunday.
“We have never been afraid. All of their actions – whether blockades or other military moves they have made – have failed, and this new issue of theirs will fail as well.”…..
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NY Times….
US Navy /Strait of Hormuz Op…..
Only a few oil tankers braved Iran’s attacks to go through the Strait of Hormuz for much of the war, leading to a drastic reduction in how much crude reached world markets.
But since May, the U.S. military has played a crucial role in getting millions of barrels of oil through the strait, helping to keep oil prices from rising further.
The operation stealthily shepherds tankers through the southern part of the strait on routes close to Oman. Iran effectively controls which ships go through its side of the strait, opposite Oman.
Before the war, about 15 million barrels of crude oil a day went through the Strait of Hormuz. In July, tankers using U.S. protected routes transported around five million barrels of oil daily out of the Persian Gulf, according to analysts.
“It’s one of the surprising successes,” said Michelle Wiese Bockmann, a shipping analyst at Windward, a maritime analysis firm. “They have been extraordinarily effective in keeping that southern corridor operating, despite the attacks.”
But the U.S. effort, which Iran opposes, has come at a cost.
The U.S. military is deploying significant resources to get a limited amount of oil through the strait — something it did not have to do before the war, when tankers sailed freely through the waterway.
“It’s extremely labor intensive to provide for that kind of persistent defense,” said Joshua Tallis, an analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses.
To try to protect vessels on the southern corridor, Central Command uses a range of weapons that can intercept Iranian drones and missiles. Ship operators say they register any planned trips through the strait with the U.S. military, and then report possible threats or attacks as they occur. The United States uses ships, helicopters and planes to launch weapons to intercept attacks. It has helped over 1,000 ships transit the strait, according to Central Command…..
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Given that Iran has regularly struck ships using the southern route, the U.S. protection has not been impregnable. But Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for Central Command, said: “It doesn’t mean the defense is ineffective. As you can see in the grand scheme, more ships are moving through than before….
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