How will the conflicts in Iran and Ukraine affect the meeting of the leaders of the United States and China? Analysis

The meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, which has already been postponed twice due to the conflict in Iran, is scheduled for May 14-15. The dialogue between the leaders of the superpowers will take place against the backdrop of the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, which have changed the approach to military operations and demonstrated the power of economic leverage in the confrontation between the countries. What role the lessons of these conflicts will play at the meeting of the leaders of the United States and China is in the analysis of Izvestia.

Straits

• The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz during the conflict in Iran has shown that control over trade routes can be an extremely effective weapon. Its closure was a blow to Asian countries, but China was prepared for such a turn of events due to the accumulated reserves of crude oil. At the same time, due to its influence on Iran, Beijing has proved to be an important mediator in the negotiations between Tehran and Washington. US President Donald Trump noted that it was China's intervention that helped achieve a truce and lift the blockade: this fact may have a beneficial effect on Sino-American relations.

• Foreign analysts suggest that China is closely monitoring the situation in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz also because it has its own serious argument for influencing the global economy — the Taiwan Strait, through which 90% of the world's traffic passes advanced chips in demand in various fields: from cars and smartphones to defense systems and developments in the field of artificial intelligence. In a situation where the United States violates trade law and border security of other states, China, as another superpower, may see additional opportunities for itself.

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• During the exercises in March 2026, the Chinese navy practiced the possibility of imposing a naval blockade of the island, and its warships are almost constantly in the waters of the strait. It is assumed that China will not even have to conduct military operations: one blockade may be enough to force other powers to consider Beijing's national interests, and the damage to the economy may exceed the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the financial crisis of 2007-2009. At the same time, the Chinese economy will also suffer losses, for which Taiwan is also a supplier of semiconductors, so the likelihood of a blockade of the island is low.

• Beijing's construction of an island in the South China Sea, in disputed waters off the coast of Vietnam, also suggests that China may adopt the tactics of blockading shipping lanes as a lever of pressure. Antelope Reef in the area of the Paracelsus Islands may become the largest Chinese naval outpost and a new factor of tension in the Asian region, as Vietnam also claims the territory.

• The conflicts in Ukraine and Iran have shown that effective attacks can be carried out not only on the ground and in the air, but also in the information field. The foreign press suggests that information warfare could become another weapon of China in the event of a crisis in the Taiwan Strait and undermine support for the idea of Taiwan's independence in American society. At the same time, many analysts are inclined to believe that the strategic uncertainty about the island, which is demonstrated by the United States, without denying the existence of a "united China", allows maintaining stability in the region, beneficial to both Washington and Beijing.

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Resources

• China will probably try to avoid in-depth discussions about its trade relations with Iran, including crude oil supplies: for Tehran, Beijing is the leading buyer of energy resources. The United States has consistently cut off China from raw materials supplies: first in Venezuela, and now in Iran. The United States has also imposed sanctions on China's five largest refineries that received oil from Iran, and although China has banned banks from complying with these sanctions, it is recommended that loans to these companies be suspended, probably pending decisions of the US—China summit.

At the same time, China has its own trump card up its sleeve — rare earth metals, on which American manufacturers, including the arms industry, are critically dependent. The United States has no alternative to supplies from China: it was the threat to restrict exports of rare earths that forced the United States to reduce duties on Chinese goods.

One of the issues at the talks may be China's relations with Russia. Sanctions against Russia have strengthened relations between Moscow and Beijing: China has become a reliable market for Russian energy resources, and Chinese technologies have begun to fill the niche vacated by the departure of Western companies. According to analysts, the rapprochement between Beijing and Moscow is unprofitable for Washington, which is why the United States violated Russia's isolation and switched to a direct dialogue with the Russian leadership.

• But an attempt to drive a wedge between Beijing and Moscow is unlikely to succeed: in addition to the visit of the American leader, Beijing is preparing for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which demonstrates the strong ties between Russia and China not only as trading partners, but also as geopolitical allies. For the same reason, it is unlikely that the topic of the Ukrainian conflict will be mentioned at the meeting of the leaders of the United States and China.

Duties

• The main topic of the meeting between the United States and China will be mutual trade, as the trade war between the countries has been going on for almost 10 years, and duties on Chinese goods have reached 145%. The parties managed to stop the war of duties during negotiations in October 2025, and China will try to extend this agreement.

• China feels more confident before the negotiations, because by entering into a conflict with Iran, the United States has fallen into a trap and is in a less strong position than before. The war with Iran has exposed the vulnerabilities of the US military machine, and first of all, the shortage of weapons that the Pentagon is at risk of encountering. For China, this means that the United States will probably not be ready to open a new front in Asia in the near future and contribute to Taiwan's military confrontation. One of the insistent demands of Chinese diplomats to the American side remains the recognition of "one China."

When preparing the material, Izvestia took into account the opinions of:

• orientalist Alexei Maslov;
• Nikita Mitrofanov's analysis of the Chinese Threat channel;
• the Americanist Malek Dudakov.