Why the Iran war is not a setback for China, but a lesson—and maybe even an opportunity to exploit

But these relationships are transactional. “The Middle East is not a paramount security or foreign policy priority for the Chinese in the way it is for the Europeans and the Americans,” Eric Olander, co-founder of the China Global South Project think tank, told me. Iran has been useful as part of a loose alignment that complicates US dominance, he said, but it was never worth direct military confrontation or crippling secondary sanctions.