At the outbreak of the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran, few policymakers in Beijing or Moscow predicted that Tehran would be able to sustainedly withstand coordinated military pressure from two of the world’s most militarily advanced powers. In the conflict’s opening phase, the overwhelming air, intelligence, and technological superiority of US and Israeli forces inflicted heavy losses on Iranian military and infrastructure targets. What was initially planned as a rapid operation to cripple Iran’s core military capabilities has however evolved into a protracted, increasingly costly conflict that has defied early expectations.
Against all odds, Iran has retained intact its core governing political structure and a substantial portion of its operational military response capacity. This outcome delivers a clear demonstration that inflicting widespread physical damage does not equate to forcing a targeted state into unconditional surrender. Iran’s unexpected battlefield resilience is far more than a regional military development – it has become a real-world stress test for the outer limits of American global power for both China and Russia. While the two countries hold divergent core interests in the conflict, neither can dismiss a decisive Iranian defeat as a regional issue isolated from great power competition. Both Beijing and Moscow recognize that if the United States can leverage its military dominance to strategically neutralize one of West Asia’s most prominent independent powers, the regional balance of power will shift dramatically, with ripple effects extending into the broader geopolitical and geoeconomic rivalry between Washington, Beijing, and Moscow.
### China’s Balancing Act Between Economic Pain and Strategic Interests
Of all major global powers, China faces the sharpest economic incentives to push for an immediate end to the conflict. Decades of deep energy trade ties have made China Iran’s largest crude oil buyer, so disruptions to energy transit and rising insecurity in the Strait of Hormuz directly impact Chinese economic performance. Data from Reuters confirms that China’s seaborne crude imports fell to roughly 7.14 million barrels per day in August 2026, a nearly 40% drop from pre-war levels. This supply disruption has cut off major Chinese refineries from a critical, low-cost source of crude oil.
Yet this immediate economic pain sits at the heart of Beijing’s core strategic dilemma: while a prolonged war harms Chinese economic interests, Beijing cannot accept a outcome that leaves Iran strategically defeated. For China, Iran is far more than just an energy supplier – it is a core node in the broader web of political and economic partnerships China has built across West Asia to expand its influence without relying on the formal military alliances that underpin US power in the region. A strategic collapse of Iran would not only reshape bilateral relations between Tehran and Washington; it would entrench far greater US influence across West Asia and erode the strategic space China has painstakingly built in the region.
China’s policy over years of maximum US pressure on Iran has reflected this balancing act. Beijing’s support for Tehran has never been limited to rhetorical political statements. China has consistently remained one of the largest buyers of Iranian crude, with independent Chinese teapot refineries continuing to import Iranian oil even amid threats of harsh US secondary sanctions. This persistence is why US officials have made Chinese crude purchases a central focus of their economic pressure campaign against Iran. This economic relationship has grown even more critical since the outbreak of full-scale war: as Washington moves to cut off Iran’s oil exports and global financial access, China stands as one of the only major economies capable of absorbing excess Iranian supply and easing economic pressure on Tehran. For Beijing, continuing to import Iranian oil is not merely a commercial transaction – it is a test case for resisting the ability of US sanctions to dictate the policy of major economies outside the American orbit, which explains why the issue has remained a persistent source of bilateral friction between Washington and Beijing.
China’s engagement extends beyond energy trade. US intelligence reports in recent years have documented that Iran has gained access to certain dual-use technologies, including components critical to its drone and missile programs, through commercial networks linked to Chinese companies. While a clear line must be drawn between official Chinese government policy and the independent activities of these commercial networks, their operations demonstrate how sustained economic ties have helped preserve a large portion of Iran’s technological and industrial base even under strict international sanctions. Diplomatically, Beijing has also refused to back Iran’s full isolation from the international community. Alongside Russia, China has repeatedly called for a negotiated political resolution to the conflict and opposed what it views as unilateral US-led pressure campaigns against Tehran.
This does not mean Beijing is prepared to commit to direct military defense of Iran. China’s core priority remains ending the war to restore stability to global energy trade routes. Yet there is a critical difference between ending the conflict and ending it on terms that leave Iran severely weakened and the regional balance of power decisively tilted toward Washington. It is here that Iran’s battlefield resilience carries the greatest strategic weight for China: the longer Tehran demonstrates it can retain operational military capacity after repeated heavy attacks, the more complex Beijing’s calculation of the consequences of an Iranian defeat becomes.
Crucially, China does not need to enter the war directly to support Iran. Its existing toolkit of economic, commercial, technological, and diplomatic tools allows it to prevent Iran’s total isolation without becoming a formal belligerent in the conflict. Perhaps the most valuable outcome for China from the war, however, is not energy trade or preserved influence in West Asia – it is the opportunity to observe firsthand the operational performance of US military forces in a high-intensity conflict. Beijing has gained unfiltered insights into US long-range strike capabilities, air operations, ammunition consumption rates, logistics sustainment, and missile defense performance. For a country whose long-term strategic competition with the US centers heavily on the Taiwan scenario, this real-world observational data is strategically invaluable.
### Russia’s Divergent Strategic Calculations
Russia’s core interests in the conflict differ substantially from China’s. Unlike Beijing, Moscow does not rely heavily on West Asian energy imports, and elevated global energy prices actually create short-term economic benefits for Russian export revenues. For the Kremlin, the Iran conflict is tied directly to Russia’s standing as a Eurasian power and its long-term goal of building a multipolar global order.
For Russia, Iran is more than a regional partner: it is one of the few major powers openly locked in full-scale conflict with both the US and Israel, capable of drawing significant American geopolitical and military attention away from Europe and the ongoing war in Ukraine, easing pressure on Moscow. A 2026 analysis published in *Middle East Policy* argues that the conflict has created clear short-term strategic advantages for Russia, while also elevating Iran’s importance to both Russia’s regional influence and its bilateral partnership with China.
Evidence of deep military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran extends far beyond rhetorical political alignment. Reporting from the *Financial Times* confirms that Russian military experts have participated in a secret collaborative program with Iran since 2023 to develop propulsion technology for hypersonic cruise missiles, a cooperation that has continued into 2026. Additional independent reporting has documented ongoing cooperation in satellite technology and transfers of complementary military equipment between the two states. This cooperation does not amount to a formal mutual defense alliance, and neither China nor Russia has offered Iran a binding security guarantee comparable to the commitments of a formal defense pact. But this informal, flexible cooperation has emerged as the defining feature of their current alignment: both powers can use economic, technological, and diplomatic tools to strengthen Iran’s defensive capacity and constrain US pressure without committing to open direct war with the United States.
### Contours of an Emerging Multipolar Global Order
Ultimately, the long-term significance of the US-Israeli war on Iran does not depend solely on which side gains the upper hand on the battlefield. The larger, more consequential question is whether the United States still retains the ability to use its combined military and economic superiority to impose its preferred political outcome on a defiant regional power. For China and Russia, the answer to this question carries sweeping implications. If Iran can sustain its resistance despite intense military pressure and crippling economic sanctions, the conflict will confirm that US ability to inflict widespread damage does not translate into ability to dictate political outcomes – a lesson that carries particular weight for China as it prepares for long-term strategic competition with Washington.
At the same time, the policy approaches of China and Russia demonstrate that challenging US hegemony does not require the creation of a formal anti-US alliance. Purchasing Iranian oil, sustaining bilateral trade, transferring dual-use technology, engaging in informal military cooperation, and wielding Security Council vetoes are all tools that raise the strategic and political cost of unilateral US power projection. Most recently, in April 2026, China and Russia jointly vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on the Strait of Hormuz, with Beijing explicitly arguing that the council should not legitimize unauthorized military operations by unilateral coalitions.
This does not mean a cohesive China-Russia-Iran geopolitical axis is emerging. The three countries hold divergent interests on many regional and global issues, and none is willing to bear unlimited costs to advance another power’s goals. Even so, the war in Iran has accelerated a broader global shift: moving from a post-Cold War order where the United States unilaterally sets the rules and determines outcomes for international crises, toward a new order where competing great powers can systematically raise the cost of unilateral US power projection.
The conflict has brought the contours of this emerging order into sharp relief. For Beijing and Moscow, Iran’s fate is not merely the future of a single regional partner. It is a critical test case: can the United States still unilaterally determine the outcome of a major regional war, or can other global powers use resistance, informal partnership, and counterpressure to raise the cost of US hegemony high enough to push the international system irreversibly toward multipolarity?