Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi in Beijing on Wednesday, their first in-person talks since the U.S.-Israel war on Iran began, focusing on the fragile ceasefire and security in the Strait of Hormuz.
Araghchi’s visit comes just one week before U.S. President Donald Trump is due in Beijing for a summit with President Xi Jinping on 14 and 15 May, casting a long shadow over the meeting and injecting it with rare urgency. Analysts say the timing is no accident.
Two issues dominated the agenda: maintaining the ceasefire reached in April and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas once passed.
Since the war began on 28 February, Iran has effectively closed the strait, pushing fuel and fertiliser prices sharply higher and prompting fears of a global recession.
The closure has put Beijing in an uncomfortable position. China has been critical of the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports, calling it dangerous, but has also grown increasingly critical of Iran’s decision to keep the strait shut.
China, the world’s largest buyer of Gulf oil and gas, has absorbed some of the shock through domestic stockpiles and a diversified energy mix, but the strain is mounting.
In Washington, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on Beijing to press Iran to release its chokehold on the strait, describing U.S. efforts to reopen it as defensive and aimed at helping thousands of civilian sailors stranded in the Persian Gulf.
“At least 10 sailors have already died as a result,” Rubio said.
So far, the U.S.-guarded corridor has seen only minimal commercial traffic, with hundreds of vessels still bottled up in the region.
For Tehran, the Beijing visit carried its own set of anxieties. Araghchi was reportedly seeking clarity on what Beijing might put on the table when Xi meets Trump, and whether any concessions to Washington could come at Iran’s expense.
On nuclear talks, Araghchi said Iran would do its utmost to protect its legitimate rights and interests, and would only accept a fair and comprehensive agreement.
With Trump touching down in Beijing in just over a week, the stakes could hardly be higher.
How China chooses to balance its partnership with Iran against its fraught but consequential relationship with the United States may well determine whether the region edges towards stability - or a deeper crisis.
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Disruption in the Strait of Hormuz has increased the strategic importance of Bab al-Mandab, raising fears that instability in both waterways could trigger a wider global energy and trade crisis.
Iran and the United States remain at loggerheads over efforts to agree a permanent end to the war in the Gulf, according to a senior Iranian source who said there had been no progress in talks to revive the interim deal agreed in June and define a timeframe to implement it.
U.S. President Donald Trump has called for Iran to pay compensation for decades of deaths and damage, adding a new demand to peace talks as Tehran seeks compensation and sanctions relief before reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
A criminal court in Damascus has sentenced former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia for premeditated murder, torture, arbitrary detention and crimes against humanity, according to Syria’s state news agency SANA.
Millions of people across Spain and Iceland are preparing on Wednesday to witness a rare total solar eclipse, when the moon will pass directly between Earth and the Sun, briefly turning daylight into darkness along a narrow path.
Millions of people across Spain and Iceland are preparing on Wednesday to witness a rare total solar eclipse, when the moon will pass directly between Earth and the Sun, briefly turning daylight into darkness along a narrow path.
Ukraine has agreed to refrain from targeting certain tankers using Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk following a request from U.S. Vice President JD Vance, the Financial Times reported, although Kyiv has continued strikes on Russian targets at the port.
Taiwan has criticised a planned joint naval exercise involving China and Indonesia near its eastern waters, describing it as a politically charged move designed to strengthen Beijing's claims over areas surrounding the island.
An overnight Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk killed an eight-year-old child, injured others and damaged residential buildings, port infrastructure and grain facilities, Russian officials and industry sources said on Wednesday.
Romanian military divers have destroyed two Gerbera-type drones found drifting near the Neptun Deep offshore gas development in the country’s Black Sea exclusive economic zone.
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