Tehran has long invested in deeper cooperation with Beijing and Moscow. Although neither of these ties constitutes a military alliance, the two powerful partners have maintained critical ties with Iran in the economic, diplomatic and security spheres, despite Washington’s efforts to isolate the Islamic Republic of Iran.
With negotiations hitting a new wall due to continued hostilities in Lebanon, China and Russia are positioned to play an influential role in determining the extent to which the United States and Iran can withstand being caught up in a long war. Tehran has long invested in deeper cooperation with Beijing and Moscow. Although neither of these ties constitutes a military alliance, the two powerful partners have maintained critical ties with Iran in the economic, diplomatic and security spheres, despite Washington’s efforts to isolate the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Although the White House faces its own growing pressure to end the confrontation due to declining public support, rising energy costs (due to the disruption of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz), and the sustainability of depleted ammunition stocks, a prolonged conflict is expected to severely test the limits of Iran’s resilience and underscore the importance of its foreign partnerships.
– There is a growing opinion in Iran that Trump is primarily seeking to buy time. In response to such a strategy, Tehran would logically continue to strengthen its relations with Beijing and Moscow, in order to cope with economic challenges and, if necessary, to prepare for a return to military confrontation – Mehdi Haratian, head of the Institute for Policy Revival think tank in Tehran, told Newsweek.
Hardline approaches on both sides
The idea that Iran could hold out longer in a protracted battle with the United States has for some time been at the core of Tehran’s military strategy. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s decentralized “mosaic” doctrine has helped the government and its defense apparatus, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, not only survive attacks but also gain leverage through missile strikes and drone strikes targeting US military facilities, Israel, neighboring Arab states, and commercial shipping throughout the region.
Even Trump acknowledged that Iran’s response exceeded expectations, a factor that likely contributed to his decision to call for a cease-fire on April 8. However, the clashes have steadily intensified since then, and the US naval counter-blockade on ships docking in Iranian ports has worsened Iran’s already precarious economic situation.
– The US seems to estimate that, due to naval pressure and growing economic challenges, Iran would capitulate to the US in a prolonged confrontation. President Trump both has little interest in letting the war spiral out of control and leaves him at a political disadvantage ahead of the World Cup and key midterm elections. He is also working under pressure from the Israel lobby. Under the circumstances, his best strategy is to keep Iran engaged through negotiations within parameters favorable to Washington while signaling to financial markets that the war is likely to end soon. However, in practice, by continuing the negotiations and maintaining a state of “neither war nor peace”, the United States can deprive Tehran of both time and strategic initiative, which will ultimately increase the likelihood that Iran will accept Trump’s terms – Haratian said.
However, Iran’s insistence on key demands, including an end to hostilities on all fronts, especially in Lebanon, continues to frustrate US negotiators. Iranian media reported that the Tehran team had suspended talks due to Israel’s ongoing operations against Iran’s ally, the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.
– Iran sees the issue of Lebanon and preventing the transformation of the Shiite geopolitical position in the Middle East as an existential and prestige issue. In all the proposals and documents it presented, Tehran emphasized that the war must end on all fronts, including in Lebanon. Therefore, it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which Iran and the United States will reach a ceasefire, while the Lebanese problem remains unresolved – said Haratian.
Hard-line approaches by the US and Iran represent costly bets for both sides. Still, China and Russia appear willing to raise the stakes for the White House, even if neither power has an interest in directly engaging in the conflict.
– China and Russia have helped Iran since the war broke out, but that aid has supported Iranian policy rather than shaped it. Russia and China have an interest in the US being distracted by threats and its dominance challenged. Russia, China and Iran are opposed to the US being able to sanction any country they don’t like, and then force the world to support those sanctions – John Alterman, a former US State Department official who is now the chairman of the Global Security and Geostrategy Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Newsweek.
How much support can Iran count on?
How far China or Russia are willing to go to support Iran remains a matter of debate. The three nations resisted growing US threats to conduct trilateral naval exercises in South Africa in January and in the Persian Gulf region in February, just days before the war, although the material aid proved fleeting.
Iran, whose signature weapons such as Shahed drones have emerged as key in Russia’s arsenal against Ukraine, faces persistent delays in receiving advanced Russian Su-35 jets, which it initially agreed to buy years ago. Reports indicate that Iran has acquired other models of Russian aircraft, such as Yak-130 fighters and Mi-28 helicopters. The countries finalized a long-awaited comprehensive strategic partnership agreement in January last year, which included strengthening military cooperation. Unlike a similar agreement reached a few months earlier between Russia and North Korea, it did not include any mutual defense clause.
China signed an earlier strategic partnership agreement with Iran in 2021, with the 25-year deal focusing primarily on significant Chinese investment in the economy and infrastructure of Iran, which sells almost all of its oil to China.
Meanwhile, since the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran, Chinese officials have denied US intelligence claims that Beijing has supplied Tehran with new anti-aircraft platforms, including man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS. US intelligence has also reportedly linked such a system to the downing of a US F-15E jet last month, the first such incident involving a US military aircraft in decades.
Other reports indicate that Iran has benefited from intelligence sharing between China and Russia, including satellite imaging platforms, which may have aided Iran’s precision in attacks on US military facilities and oil and gas facilities in the region. Economically, Iran’s trade with both countries appears to be growing, using the landlocked Caspian Sea to Iran’s north and rail routes that run across Asia.
– China has bought large quantities of sanctioned Iranian oil, and Chinese buyers have worked closely with Iran to build what US researchers and officials describe as one of the largest sanctions-dodging networks in the world. Russia is said to have supplied Iran with intelligence on the locations of US troops, ships and aircraft. After the US and Israeli attacks on Iran began in February of this year, Russia continued to deliver weapons components and technical expertise – Christopher Walker, vice president of the Center for European Policy Analysis, told Newsweek.
Added to this is the mix of narratives critical of US foreign policy that justify a closer partnership between Beijing, Moscow and Tehran. Iran also formalized its targeting of China and Russia by formally joining two power-led blocs, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in 2023 and the BRICS group in 2024.
Alterman also believes that China and Russia’s motivation for helping Iran is primarily driven by a shared desire to counter US influence. Also influencing the calculations of China and Russia are their strategic ties with other regional actors, especially the influential, oil-rich countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which have come under direct attack from Iran in response to their deployment of US military bases.
Alignment without a formal alliance
From Iran’s perspective, there are limits to alignment rooted in historical skepticism toward reliance on foreign powers. Post-revolutionary Iran largely fought its last major war alone, while most international support went to Iraq during the bloody eight-year conflict in the 1980s – a situation that helped fuel Tehran’s strategy of investing in its own coalition of ideologically aligned actors.
More recent experiences have reinforced this aversion to formal security pacts, according to Arash Reisinezhad, a visiting assistant professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School.
– During the recent wars, the Twelve Day War and the Iran War, both countries offered political support and diplomatic support, but neither provided decisive and unconditional support related to military alliances. This is not necessarily because either country is hostile to Iran. On the contrary, their own national interests discourage transforming their relations with Tehran into formal alliance commitments. As a result, there is a widespread view among Iranian policymakers that, in moments of existential crisis, neither Moscow nor Beijing can ultimately be relied upon as guarantors of Iranian security. This perception has historically shaped Iranian strategic thinking and helps explain why Tehran continues to place more emphasis on domestic deterrence capabilities than on external security guarantees, Reisinejad told Newsweek.
However, he argued that “the debate in Iran appears to be evolving,” with a growing chorus of voices calling for closer security coordination with China in particular, suggesting ways the trio could optimize coordination.
– China and Russia can become more important, not by forming an alliance, but by accelerating Eurasian connectivity. Future cooperation is likely to focus on trade routes, logistics networks and continental corridors connecting East Asia, Central Asia, Russia and the Middle East – Reisinejad said.
Such cooperation also serves core Chinese and Russian interests that stretch across the heart of Asia and beyond. This formula makes Iran a partner worth preserving for the US’s two biggest rivals.
– A serious weakening or collapse of the Islamic Republic of Iran could generate greater strategic pressure along Russia’s southern flank while increasing pressure on China’s western periphery. This does not mean that either force will fight on Iran’s behalf. However, it helps to explain why both Moscow and Beijing have strong incentives to preserve stability in Iran and maintain cooperative relations with Tehran, Reisinejad concludes.
