Artículo World Politics Review, 15.05.2026 Paul Post, profesor y académico del Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Though the timing was delayed due to the Iran war, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met face-to-face this week in Beijing. The summit follows Trump and Xi's last meeting last year during Trump's tour of East Asia.
The meeting between the two leaders of could not come at a more critical time. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz to most shipping traffic has been yet another blow to the global economy following Trump's effort to reshape global trade with his sweeping tariffs. Despite his administration's earlier talk of attempting to decouple from China's economy, Trump has found that doing so in practice is not only difficult but economically harmful given China's ability to choke off exports of rare earth minerals that are critical to the global economy. As Raymond Kuo of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs recently observed, "Both sides have demonstrated that they have the ability to inflict pain on the other," so the key economic issue is for them to return to "more stable economic relations".
Since it is the U.S. that, along with Israel, launched the war against Iran and it is Trump's tariffs that have caused the most global economic upheaval lately, it is understandable to focus on what the summit conveyed about Trump's approach to China. But the summit could also be seen as a chance to determine whether China under Xi is seeking to be a constructive or disruptive force in global politics.
On one hand, China has had amble opportunity to establish itself as a stabilizing force in a chaotic world-the last, best hope for maintaining the rules-based order. Trump's actions-from his global tariffs to his rendition of Venezuela's Nicholas Maduro to his war against Iran-have given Xi the perfect foil to contrast with his stated desire for a more stable, predictable global order.
Xi has already made many indirect, and sometimes direct, digs at the United States, stating that "hegemonism" has no place in the world and that hegemony is "not in China's DNA." And his recent remarks during his summit with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, that the "world order was in disarray," resonated with many observers in the West. That is why, as The Economist recently pointed out, Xi's best strategy at the moment is to follow the adage, "never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake."
China is itself seeking to revise the global order to its preferences by playing a crucial role in ongoing conflicts.
Of course, China might be calling for peace and calm, but this message is also fully self-serving. Both Venezuela and Iran are major sources of oil for China's economy. Beijing might be leading the world in the production of renewable energy, but that masks the extent to which its economy is still heavily fossil fuel-reliant, particularly oil and gas from the Persian Gulf. So far, China has been able to continue importing oil from Iran, largely by turning to rail transportation through Central Asia. This, in turn, has helped keep Iran economically afloat during the war.
But China's assistance to Iran hasn't stopped there. It has also provided diplomatic cover, abstaining from a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Iran's attacks on Gulf states and then vetoing a resolution that called for a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Firms with ties to China's military, the People's Liberation Army, are reported to have provided dual-use technology to Iran, as well as intelligence-gathering systems to map the location of U.S. forces. There were reports last month that China was preparing to ship anti-air missile systems to Iran, though Trump claimed that Xi assured him that this was not the case. Yet more recent reporting indicates that Iranian officials are attempting to coordinate with Chinese firms to acquire weapons shipped through third-party countries.
Even if Xi is able to maintain plausible deniability about China's assistance to Iran, this is more difficult with Russia. It has now been well over four years since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and a key reason that Moscow has been able to sustain its war effort despite extensive Western sanctions is the economic and technological lifeline offered by China. Though the depth of the Russia-China partnership is a matter of some debate, I have long identified the two powers as allies. For all of Trump's efforts to talk with Putin to stop the war, the more direct route would have been to convince Xi to cut off China's support, as it is an enabler of Russia's behavior.
But it's not clear that it is in China's interests to cut off Russia. Shared opposition to the United States dominating the global order gives the two nations a common interest, an interest that has been manifest in their alternative institutional arrangements, be it the BRICS grouping or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
China may not condone the war in Ukraine and it may prefer that Iran not be attacked, but both conflicts are serving its interests by weighing down the United States, diverting resources that would otherwise be directed toward countering China in the Asia-Pacific. There is even speculation that Xi could decide that the Trump administration is too distracted and too overwhelmed to adequately protect Taiwan if China were to make its own moves against the Island. Given China's large military buildup and modernization in recent years, coupled with Xi purging the military ranks of voices who may not hold back his more hawkish inclinations, the possibility of aggression-even if it falls short of a full-scale invasion of Taiwan-can't be ruled out.
In this context, what should we make of Xi's calls for order and stability? On the surface, they seem like notable contrast with Trump's erratic and predatory behavior and Putin's imperialistic delusions. But that doesn't mean that China is not itself seeking to revise the global order to its preferences. It is playing a crucial role in the same conflicts that are draining the United States' and Russia's energy. In this world of great power competition, it shouldn't be shocking to see the great powers compete, even militarily. And that includes China-no matter how Xi tries to portray its motives.
