President Donald Trump's precision strikes on Iranian nuclear sites are making an impact well beyond the Islamic Republic's borders, spurring China to rethink how he might react should Beijing set its sights on Taiwan.
China condemned the United States' decision to intervene in the Iran-Israel war, calling it a serious violation of international law that further inflamed Middle Eastern tensions.
According to American and Taiwanese officials and analysts who spoke with the Financial Times, the attack on Iran is forcing Chinese President Xi Jinping's foreign policy advisers to reconsider the U.S. president's willingness to use military force when it comes to issues China views as vital to its national interest.
"They thought Trump 2.0 was going to be more transactional, possibly more pragmatic, so maybe a more stable relationship," Andrea Ghiselli, an expert on China's Middle East policy with the University of Exeter, said. "It is not turning out that way at all."
Beijing must now reevaluate whether Trump will take a more isolationist tack during his second term, and avoid U.S. entanglement in foreign conflicts, or whether he would be more inclined to flex American military might if China attempted to bring Taiwan back under communist control through force.
One American official, who was granted anonymity by the Times, said that Trump's military action has shattered the perception in China that he "cannot be taken seriously."
"Now the view that he will flinch in a crisis has been debunked; that has rebuilt some deterrence vis-à-vis China," the official said.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te's administration is analyzing the strategic implications of the U.S. military action against Iran, a person familiar with the government's thinking told the Times.
The preliminary thinking within Lai's government is that Trump "shattered the impression" that isolationists were running the show in the White House and dictating American foreign policy, the person said.
"This should probably help with deterrence against China. But we will need time to observe how China adjusts to this in concrete terms," the Times' source said.
The U.S. strikes, which occurred on Saturday, involved B-2 stealth bombers dropping bunker-buster bombs and submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles hitting the Iranian uranium enrichment plants at Natanz, Fordo, and Isfahan.
Yun Sun, senior fellow at the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank, told the Times that Trump's decision to strike Iran put "a very big question mark" over Beijing's previous belief that he would not involve the United States in conflicts over Taiwan or territorial claims in the South China Sea.
"After this war on Iran, the Chinese will be much more sober about that assessment," she said.
China will also likely have to reassess whether its air force and naval activities near Taiwan might lead to a response from Trump.
Regional officials and experts are also reportedly weighing the impact the redeployment of American military assets from the Indo-Pacific region to the Middle East will have on maintaining Washington's focus on China, which is considered to be its "pacing threat."
"Everyone who is thinking about the Indo-Pacific is thinking about this," Tuvia Gering, a China expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said. "China is also thinking about these implications."
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.