In the war against Iran, China sees a familiar pattern of American mistakes

BEIJING — The Trump administration has repeatedly presented the war in Iran as a quick and winnable fight, promising to defeat the Islamic Republic “totally and decisively,” which is no comparison to the “stupid” wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But from China’s perspective, the parallels are clear.

“You can blow up everything, destroy everything,” a Chinese official told the Times, describing the Americans, “but you don’t have a strategy.”

President Trump arrives in Beijing this week for talks with a Chinese government more confident than ever in its rise on the world stage, taking stock of its influence and still disconcerted that the U.S. administration has chosen a costly new war in the Middle East.

China watched as the United States, after seven weeks of fighting an outmatched foe, depleted nearly half of its stockpiles of high-end munitions — including its THAAD and Patriot batteries — and fired its Army chief of staff, among other Pentagon leaders who had warned of critical shortages.

Marco Rubio, Trump’s national security adviser and secretary of state, said the military operation that sparked the war, known as Operation Epic Fury, “is over.”

But the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most vital commercial waterways, remains effectively closed. Iranian attacks in the region continue. And talks between Washington and Tehran have failed to reach a diplomatic agreement likely to put a definitive end to the conflict.

“The Chinese have high regard for the operational competence of U.S. forces, but they recognize that, so far at least, the Trump administration has not achieved its primary goals in going to war with Iran,” said David Ochmanek, a former deputy defense secretary now with the Rand Corp.

The war gave Beijing the opportunity, Ochmanek said, “to redouble its efforts to assert for a year and a half that the [People’s Republic of China]It is the United States, not the United States, that is a force for global stability.

The war allowed China to demonstrate some diplomatic prowess. An initial ceasefire agreed between the United States and Iran last month was reached only after Beijing pressured Tehran to accept. And China’s advocacy of an open strait – rejecting Iranian attempts to impose a toll system – while opposing the US war itself, has allowed Beijing to maintain its influence over both sides.

This also incurred costs. Beijing’s allies noted that the government did not come to Tehran’s defense early in the war. And China has a vested interest in having a free and open waterway, through which nearly 50% of the country’s crude oil imports pass every day.

Before the war began and throughout its first weeks, Washington diverted significant military assets from Asia — where Trump’s own national security strategy says they are most needed — to the Middle East.

The USS Abraham Lincoln was redirected from the South China Sea, along with dozens of advanced missile interceptors from South Korea and Japan and nearly the entire U.S. inventory of long-range air-to-ground missiles in the Pacific.

Pentagon policy experts have been invited to discuss a possible invasion of Kharg Island, the jewel of Iran’s oil industry, to learn lessons for planning a defense of Taiwan, according to a defense official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. A Marine expeditionary unit was sent from Okinawa to the region for the possible operation.

Chinese officials and analysts have been candid in their assessments of U.S. hard power, impressed by a military they recognize as the best in the world.

But Beijing sees a persistent flaw in American strategy: the belief that military force alone can reshape political realities, a view further weakened by pressures on a democratic government whose public opinion grows impatient with wars that drag on beyond days or weeks.

The Chinese autocracy has no accountability to the public – and it is anyway convinced that Chinese public opinion would be on its side if it were to launch a major military operation against its main target, Taiwan.

But there are also lessons of caution to be learned from the example of the Americans.

Over the past year, Taiwan’s navy has practiced rapid deployment of cheap, domestically produced smart mines for the sea – a potential bulwark against enemy port blockades and hostile invading forces.

It’s the type of asymmetric warfare that has so far frustrated the U.S. military in the Strait of Hormuz, prolonging a war that Trump had promised would last a month or less.

Taiwan would also confront Beijing with political realities that military force cannot erase. Nearly 90% of Taiwanese oppose a Chinese takeover, and about 60% say they would resist it at all costs.

“China analysts see two things at once,” said Craig Singleton, senior director of the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “They are impressed by the reach, precision and operational capability of the U.S. military, but they also see a familiar pattern of American power struggling to translate battlefield successes into a lasting political outcome. »

This is important for Taiwan, Singleton said, “because China’s military modernization has borrowed heavily from the U.S. model, relying heavily on joint operations, high-tech precision strikes, decapitation concepts and information dominance.”

“If the world’s most experienced military can still struggle to turn military pressure into political success,” he added, “Beijing must ask itself whether [People’s Liberation Army] could do better in a much more complex Taiwanese scenario.

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