Xi, Putin hold planned video call amid US-Iran talks

Putin and Xi conducted the second high-level bilateral meeting in a week, only three days after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Russian Security Council head Sergei Shoigu in Beijing in advance of the meeting.

While the meeting was pre-planned, it very likely was concerned with developments in the Middle East, especially the prospect of a regional war involving Iran. According to Axios, U.S. - Iran talks are collapsing, significantly raising the probability of armed conflict in the Middle East. In his earlier conversation with Shoigu, Wang appeared to allude to different perspectives on the Iranian issue (and potentially Beijing’s growing commercial links with non-U.S. but Western powers, which typically are also oil/energy importers), as he distinguished between “respective and common interests.”

China, the world’s largest energy importer, and Russia, one of the world’s largest energy exporters, have structurally different interests in energy markets. China would face worsening terms of trade in the event of major, sustained global energy production outages. Conversely, Russian energy exports could benefit enormously – although Moscow does not wish to be seen stimulating unrest in the Middle East, given its important political, defense, and commercial ties there.

Both Xi and Putin appeared to allude to different interests, potentially over the Iran issue, although Putin sought to downplay any potential frictions.

In the Kremlin’s English-language readout, Putin said: “I am confident that they will remain resilient and will continue to steadily develop across all sectors regardless of momentary international developments.” This reference to “momentary” developments may be Putin’s way of suggesting that any U.S. – Iran conflict will be sharp and short, much like the June 2025 intervention.

Xi Jinping appears much more wary of a conflict, for his part, owing not least to China’s current dependency on oil imports from the Middle East. In a bilateral call with Putin, Xi stated:

“Since the beginning of the year, the international situation has become increasingly turbulent. As responsible major countries and permanent members of the UN Security Council, China and Russia have an obligation to promote the international community’s adherence to fairness and justice, firmly defend the achievements of the victory in World War II, resolutely uphold the international system with the UN at its core and the basic norms of international law, and work together to safeguard global strategic stability.”

Xi also conducted a call with the White House, although the ...