Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United States came with all the choreography: a B-2 flyover, pandas, a Nixon-era toast. But for anyone watching from the Global South, the spectacle was beside the point. More important was Beijing’s emphasis on “constructive strategic stability” in its relationship with Washington.
For capitals from Riyadh to New Delhi to Jakarta, the summit offered a glimpse of how they may navigate relations with the two powers over the rest of this decade. Beijing emerged from the summit offering diplomatic cover without military entanglement. Washington, by contrast, came to the meeting already embroiled in the nearly seven-month US-Israeli war on Iran, pressing allies on trade, reasserting US dominance in Latin America, and demanding that the Global South choose sides in its effort to contain China, all while Trump himself toasted Xi and hailed the summit as a success.
For governments across the Global South being urged to distance themselves from Beijing, that contrast will not go unnoticed. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Gulf. Trump wants China, Tehran’s largest trading partner, to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, choked since the US-Israeli war on Iran began in February.
Xi backed a return to a ceasefire and eventual peace talks, but the Chinese readout offered no specifics on reopening the strait and no commitment to pressure Iran. Beijing appears determined to preserve its room for manoeuvre. For Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha, that has obvious advantages.
China can call Tehran, issue a UN statement, or offer to mediate, all without deploying a single soldier or demanding a military base. Meanwhile, Washington is a direct party to the war, and its credibility as a security guarantor is eroded by the very crisis it helped create. Gulf capitals are already calibrating: stay under the US umbrella for hardware, but hedge through Beijing for diplomatic crisis management and energy-market stability.
China’s usefulness, in other words, lies partly in the fact that it is not fighting the wars Washington is. That calculation extends across the wider region. For Iraq, Egypt and Algeria, all watching energy prices spike and shipping lanes choke, China’s restraint has its appeal.
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