Foreign & Public Diplomacy

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief.

The highlights this week: China takes a relatively muted approach as the United States begins a blockade of Iranian ports, the People’s Liberation Army Daily sends an official signal on army politics, and China’s domestic car sales fall for six straight months.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief.

The highlights this week: China takes a relatively muted approach as the United States begins a blockade of Iranian ports, the People’s Liberation Army Daily sends an official signal on army politics, and China’s domestic car sales fall for six straight months.

Is Beijing Going Soft?

After the U.S. military began a blockade of Iranian ports this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping responded by speaking out against a “return to the law of the jungle,” while Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for persistence in the so-far-unproductive U.S.-Iran talks mediated by Pakistan.

China has actively sought to get the United States to back down and for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz—not least because China sources most of its imported oil from the Persian Gulf.

Yet the Chinese reaction to the ongoing crisis has been muted compared with its response to past U.S. misdeeds. China has so far avoided vitriolic denunciations or visibly trying to exploit U.S. weakness—even the thinning out of its military forces in the Asia-Pacific.

Instead, Beijing has presented itself as a stable power ready to stick to norms, in implicit contrast to U.S. President Donald Trump’s White House. This strategy has paid off in global approval ratings, with China creeping ahead of the United States in recent Gallup polling—though both countries remain broadly unpopular.

Xi’s meeting last week with Cheng Li-wun, the leader of Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT)—in which he offered incentives to a future KMT government for bilateral cooperation—was part of this softer approach. As well as deepening ties with the KMT, Xi signaled a lack of desire to turn the Taiwan issue into a crisis anytime soon.

In the past, China........

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