Israel’s air campaign against Iran did more than degrade Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities—it forced every regional actor to show its proverbial hand. Israel went all-in with an overwhelming airpower campaign, Gulf capitals folded into wary neutrality, and Washington showed that it still owns the table. Beijing, by contrast, merely dealt out press releases, its Middle East playbook reduced to rhetorical flourishes without ante.

With the dust now settled, the lesson most relevant to Beijing lies far from the Gulf. The short clash confirmed what Chinese strategists have long preached: In great-power contests, hard power decides outcomes.

Israel’s air campaign against Iran did more than degrade Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities—it forced every regional actor to show its proverbial hand. Israel went all-in with an overwhelming airpower campaign, Gulf capitals folded into wary neutrality, and Washington showed that it still owns the table. Beijing, by contrast, merely dealt out press releases, its Middle East playbook reduced to rhetorical flourishes without ante.

With the dust now settled, the lesson most relevant to Beijing lies far from the Gulf. The short clash confirmed what Chinese strategists have long preached: In great-power contests, hard power decides outcomes.

Yet the United States’ sudden intervention in the Iran-Israel conflict could complicate China’s Taiwan calculus. In a cross‑strait crisis, a wild-card U.S. president such as Donald Trump might act sooner and hit harder than Chinese planners previously assumed. Even a restraint-inclined president could reverse course and retaliate on Taiwan’s behalf, especially if the island withstood China’s opening salvo and U.S. public opinion rallied behind Taipei. In short, unless China can seize the island in one unmistakable gambit, the United States may still roll the dice.

That should give Chinese President Xi Jinping pause—but it likely won’t. From Russia’s stalled blitz in Ukraine to Iran’s shattered air defenses, overconfidence keeps luring revisionist powers into placing bad bets, and Beijing risks the same fate if it starts believing its own military hype.

For Gulf leaders, the 12-day war reaffirmed that the United States remains the sole external actor capable of reshaping reality on the ground. Their courtship of Beijing stemmed, in part,........

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