作者： admin

As a highly anticipated bilateral meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping approaches, China’s growing diplomatic influence in the ongoing Iran conflict has moved into the global spotlight, following high-stakes talks Wednesday between the two nations’ top foreign policy officials in Beijing.

Over the past decade, Beijing has steadily expanded its footprint in global diplomacy, shifting from its long-standing policy of avoiding entanglement in distant regional conflicts to emerge as a key power broker mediating disputes spanning from Southeast Asian border tensions to the war in Eastern Europe. While Beijing has not taken on the formal title of mediator in the Iran war, both Washington and Tehran have publicly acknowledged its outsized quiet influence in pushing for de-escalation of the conflict.

The Trump administration has repeatedly pushed Beijing to leverage its close economic ties with Tehran to force the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global oil chokepoint that Iran has blockaded amid the fighting. During Wednesday’s talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi — his first visit to Beijing since the war began on February 28 — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated China’s call for an immediate comprehensive ceasefire, stating that Beijing is deeply troubled by the human and security costs of the ongoing conflict.

“The entire international community shares a urgent collective goal of restoring normal, secure passage through the Strait of Hormuz, and China hopes all relevant parties will move quickly to answer the strong calls from the global community,” Wang told Araghchi, according to China’s official state news agency Xinhua. Wang also added that Beijing recognizes Iran’s legitimate right to develop peaceful nuclear energy and welcomes Tehran’s long-standing pledge to refrain from pursuing nuclear weapons.

The timing of Araghchi’s visit is not accidental, with the Trump-Xi summit scheduled for next week in Beijing, where the Iran conflict is expected to top the bilateral agenda. A day ahead of the Beijing talks, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged Chinese officials to use the meeting to pressure Tehran to lift its blockade of the strategic waterway.

Araghchi signaled that progress on reopening the strait could be within reach, telling reporters through Xinhua that “currently, it is possible to resolve the issue of reopening the Strait of Hormuz as soon as possible.” Wang’s renewed public call for the strait’s reopening has already created new momentum for behind-the-scenes negotiations between Washington and Tehran to end the conflict, analysts note.

Regional and global policy experts have offered mixed assessments of what the high-profile meeting signals about China’s evolving role. Tuvia Gering, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, noted that the coordinated visit demonstrates Beijing and Tehran’s aligned messaging, and reinforces China’s ambition to secure a permanent seat at the table for any future regional security agreement. “However, unless Beijing rolls out a concrete, actionable peace initiative, I would not characterize this as a meaningful shift in China’s approach to the conflict,” Gering added.

Hoo Tiang Boon, a professor of Chinese foreign policy at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, pointed out that the visit was arranged at Beijing’s initiative, marking a deliberate display of China’s leverage over Tehran. “By summoning the Iranian foreign minister and holding high-profile talks, Beijing cannot be accused of sitting on the sidelines and refusing to engage,” Hoo noted.

Many analysts highlight that China holds a unique position in any mediation efforts thanks to its status as a leading economic power with deep ties to all key stakeholders in the conflict, from Iran to major Gulf Arab states and Pakistan. Unlike most other global powers, Beijing is positioned to offer large-scale postwar reconstruction investment and targeted economic relief to war-impacted regions, tools few other actors can match.

George Chen, a partner at the international advisory firm The Asia Group, argued that China’s role in the Iran dispute is irreplaceable. As Tehran’s largest crude oil buyer, Beijing’s policy positions carry significant weight with Iranian leadership, he noted, adding that China is also one of the few major powers that has publicly expressed sympathy for Iran’s position at the United Nations. The U.S. government has additionally noted that Iran’s ballistic missile program was developed with early Chinese technology support, and Beijing continues to sell Iran dual-use industrial components that can be repurposed for missile manufacturing.

This is not China’s first high-profile mediation success in the Middle East. In 2023, Beijing played a central role in brokering the restoration of formal diplomatic relations between longtime regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, a breakthrough that drastically reduced the risk of direct and proxy conflict across the Gulf. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, a researcher at Indonesia’s Center of Economic and Law Studies, called the 2023 deal a major geopolitical win for China, but noted that Beijing is deliberate about when it chooses to engage. “Its mediation tends to be opportunistic and low-risk, often occurring when conditions are already ripe for an agreement,” Rakhmat explained, noting that both Riyadh and Tehran already had strong incentives to re-engage before Beijing stepped in.

Beyond the Middle East, Beijing has built a growing track record of conflict mediation in recent years. It hosted multiple rounds of talks between Thailand and Cambodia during their 2024 border conflict, and joined the U.S. for initial ceasefire negotiations in Malaysia, helping broker a second ceasefire when fighting resumed late last year. Beijing has also put forward formal peace proposals for the war in Ukraine, and even hosted Ukraine’s foreign minister for talks, despite its public “no-limits” strategic partnership with Russia.

Experts note that China’s diplomatic messaging in global conflicts follows a consistent pattern, with Beijing repeatedly emphasizing respect for the U.N. Charter and national sovereignty. Amid the Iran conflict, President Xi last month reiterated this framing, calling for “upholding the principles of peaceful coexistence, upholding national sovereignty, upholding the rule of international law, and coordinating development and security.” Hoo noted that this consistent messaging has become a hallmark of China’s mediation efforts.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor of international relations at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University, argued that for distant conflicts, Beijing often faces low tangible stakes but can reap major diplomatic benefits, particularly as the world adjusts to the Trump administration’s unconventional negotiating style. “What the U.S. is doing under Trump is deeply damaging, and everyone suffers from it … and China is displaying global leadership and exerting its global role by speaking to the rules-based international system,” Pongsudhirak said. “It’s an inescapable contrast” between the two approaches to global diplomacy, he added.

Wu contributed reporting from Bangkok.

In a landmark unanimous ruling by Australia’s highest judicial body, an Iranian man convicted of murdering his wife has lost his final legal challenge to prevent his deportation to the Pacific island nation of Nauru, clearing the way for the Australian government’s controversial multi-million-dollar resettlement deal to move forward.

The 61-year-old perpetrator, identified in court documents only as TCXM to protect refugee confidentiality standards in Australia, had appealed a lower court’s 2023 ruling that greenlit his deportation to Nauru under a 30-year visa arrangement. All seven High Court justices rejected his appeal, closing off the last avenue of legal recourse for the convicted murderer.

TCXM first arrived in Australia from Iran in 1990 and was granted a protection visa five years later. In 1999, he was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the fatal murder of his wife. His visa was canceled in 2015 following his conviction, and he was moved from prison to immigration detention, where he remained for eight years. Iran does not allow the forced repatriation of its citizens from other countries, and Australia maintains a longstanding policy of not refouling refugees to nations where they would face persecution, leaving Australian authorities with no clear path to remove him from the country until the Nauru deal was struck.

The Nauru resettlement agreement emerged as a policy solution to a political and legal crisis created by a 2023 High Court ruling. That earlier decision found that Australia could no longer hold stateless people or non-citizens who cannot be returned to their home countries in indefinite immigration detention with no path to third-country resettlement. In response to that ruling, more than 350 non-citizens — many of them convicted criminals, including TCXM — were released from detention on temporary bridging visas, creating widespread public and political pressure on the government to find a long-term solution.

Under the 2023 bilateral deal, Australia agreed to pay Nauru a total of AU$408 million (US$296 million) to host up to an agreed number of unwanted non-citizens over a 30-year period, with an additional annual ongoing payment of AU$70 million (US$51 million) to the small island nation, which has a total population of just 12,000 people. To date, eight men have already been resettled in Nauru under the agreement, which has faced fierce domestic criticism for what opponents call its exorbitant and unjustified cost to Australian taxpayers.

In his appeal to the High Court, TCXM put forward two core arguments against his deportation. First, he claimed that Nauru’s limited public health infrastructure could not provide adequate care for his severe chronic asthma. Second, he argued that the bilateral resettlement agreement between Canberra and Nauru was unlawful, and that his deportation amounted to punitive action by the executive branch of government, which violates the Australian Constitution — the document reserves the power of punishment exclusively to the judicial system, not the government. Both arguments were rejected by the court’s full bench.

Immigration Minister Tony Burke, who had defended the deportation order through the legal process, praised the High Court’s outcome as a critical victory for Australia’s sovereign control of its immigration system. “I welcome the decision of the court. A canceled visa must have consequences in our migration system,” Burke said in a post-ruling statement.

TCXM was permitted to remain in Australian territory during his legal challenge, and no official timeline has been announced for when his deportation will be carried out. He was one of the first three non-citizens selected for resettlement in Nauru under the new program, and his legal challenge was widely viewed as a key test case for the validity of the government’s entire deal with the Pacific nation.

This is not the first time Australia has partnered with Nauru to manage irregular migration and unwanted non-citizens. For more than a decade, Canberra funded offshore detention camps on Nauru and in Papua New Guinea for asylum seekers who attempted to reach Australia by boat, a policy that largely ended the large-scale people smuggling trade that once flourished in Southeast Asia, as thousands of asylum seekers attempted the dangerous crossing on rickety, overloaded fishing vessels.

In a high-stakes diplomatic gathering in Beijing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with his newly appointed Iranian counterpart Abbas Araqchi, marking Araqchi’s first visit to China since the outbreak of the US-Israeli military conflict against Iran. At the top of the agenda was the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, with Wang pressing for the immediate reopening of the critical global waterway that has been largely blocked by reciprocal restrictions from Iran and the US since the war began.

As one of the world’s most vital chokepoints for global energy trade, the Strait of Hormuz carries roughly a fifth of the world’s daily crude oil supplies. Its prolonged closure has sent ripples through energy markets, leaving the international community on edge about potential price spikes and supply disruptions. Wang emphasized in the meeting that restoring safe and unobstructed navigation through the strait aligns with the shared interests of the entire global community, and he called on all relevant parties to answer the international community’s urgent call to lift the blockades without delay.

On the broader conflict, Wang stressed that reaching a lasting, comprehensive ceasefire remains the world’s most urgent priority. He warned that any resumption of large-scale hostilities would only deepen the region’s crisis and bring more catastrophic harm to civilians and infrastructure. Reaffirming China’s consistent neutral mediation position, Wang noted that Beijing has long avoided direct entanglement in the conflict while working quietly behind the scenes to push all sides toward dialogue. He reiterated that China remains fully ready to facilitate further talks and support international efforts to de-escalate tensions across the Middle East.

In a notable gesture of diplomatic engagement, Wang also publicly recognized Iran’s longstanding commitment to not developing nuclear weapons, a point that aligns with China’s broader efforts to preserve the non-proliferation framework in the region. According to Iranian state media readouts of the meeting, Araqchi used the occasion to reaffirm Iran’s commitment to deepening bilateral cooperation with China, telling Wang that partnership between the two countries will grow even stronger in the coming years.

This meeting comes as the international community prepares for a landmark summit next week between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, a meeting that was originally scheduled for March but postponed after the US and Israel launched their wide-ranging military strikes on Iran. If the summit proceeds as planned next week, it will mark the first visit by a sitting US president to China in nearly a decade, and the Iran conflict and the Strait of Hormuz impasse are widely expected to top the bilateral agenda.

Notably, both US and Iranian officials have already credited Chinese diplomatic mediation for helping broker the April ceasefire between the two sides, which was formally arranged through Pakistan. China has also repeatedly criticized the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, describing the move as “irresponsible and dangerous” that risks unraveling the fragile ceasefire agreement that has been in place for months.

For China, the stakes of the Strait of Hormuz reopening are deeply personal. China is one of the largest buyers of Iranian crude oil, even as the oil remains under US unilateral sanctions. Data from the Center on Global Energy Policy shows that China imported an average of 1.38 million barrels of Iranian crude per day in 2025, accounting for roughly 12 percent of China’s total crude imports. Despite this heavy reliance on energy supplies that pass through the strait, Trump told reporters at the White House earlier this week that Xi Jinping has acted with “very respectful” posture toward the US in recent months. He claimed that China has not challenged US positions on the conflict, adding that “Xi would not challenge the US because of me.”

As diplomatic activity ramps up on multiple fronts ahead of the Trump-Xi summit, the outcome of the talks on the Strait of Hormuz could have far-reaching implications for global energy security, the future of the Iran conflict, and the trajectory of bilateral relations between the world’s two largest economies.