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Why Xi believes US sanctions are a big bluff (and continues to import oil from Tehran)

2026-08-26 23:16:03Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

Why Xi believes US sanctions are a big bluff (and continues to import oil from

Guido Santevecchi – Corriere della Sera

Beijing's diplomacy responded harshly to the threat of US sanctions for covert support for Iran.

"The government of the People's Republic of China will take all necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests," the Foreign Ministry spokesman said at a press conference.

He maintained his usual stance: "We strongly oppose unilateral sanctions (the American ones), which are always illegal" and "cause chain reactions."

One reaction says that Xi Jinping and his advisers do not believe they are truly the target of the "economic D-Day" warned last week by Donald Trump against Tehran and the countries that help it save itself from sinking.

Beijing analysts noted that even when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced “additional sanctions” on Monday against any entity doing business with the Iranian regime, he did not explicitly mention China, but simply answered a press question about Beijing’s possible involvement in the punitive plan.

"No country is above it," Bessent said.

Xi has some reason to believe this is another Trump bluff. And just as much to believe that he still has the cards to play the economic game, even if it gets tougher.

For months, Washington has been spreading rumors about alleged Chinese support for Iranian defense. There is talk of using data from the Chinese satellite network provided to the Pasdaran to guide their missile attacks; then there is talk of selling anti-aircraft missile launchers. Allegations that have never been fully proven, denied by Beijing and which in no case triggered any sanctions and did not prevent Trump from visiting Beijing last May.

Xi knows he has a 'weapon' that Americans fear: rare earth metals, essential to the technology industry, including the arms industry. It was the prospect of a blockade of Chinese supplies of these minerals that convinced Trump last year to call a tactical truce in the tariff war declared in Beijing.

The Chinese president is expected at the White House in September to return the state visit and extend the trade truce for another year. It seems unlikely that Trump will tear up the deal with a barrage of sanctions against Chinese companies and financial institutions.

"I believe neither side wants to disrupt Xi Jinping's trip to Washington," Beijing political analyst Wang Zichen told the New York Times.

The analyst adds that "there is now a significant drop in credibility embedded in every statement Trump makes about Iran."

The threats from the US president and his minister do not seem to worry the Chinese much for now. Trump's economic D-Day "reveals how desperate his administration is in the face of Iran," said Wu Xinbo, a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai and a consultant to the Foreign Ministry.

It is well known that, despite Western sanctions against Tehran, for years China has bought 90 percent of Tehran’s oil exports – about 1.3 million barrels a day. In August, with the blockade of Hormuz and clashes in the Persian Gulf, the Chinese continued to import about 500,000 barrels a day, according to data from the analysis center Kpler. Most of the traffic that avoids the blockade is carried out through a complex system of cargo transfers at sea between sanctioned and “clean” tankers, which then sail to Chinese ports and small, officially private, non-state-controlled refineries (known in the jargon as “teapots”).

It should also be remembered that the main sellers of crude oil to the People's Republic from the Middle East are Saudi Arabia and Iraq. That Russian supplies are plentiful and that long before the war Beijing planners had amassed strategic oil reserves estimated at 1.3 billion barrels.

However, if pressure from Washington were to push Beijing to further reduce purchases of Iranian crude oil (which it receives at discounted prices, like Russian crude), the Chinese industry would turn to other suppliers, driving up the price per barrel. In this crisis that is costing Trump and the West dearly, Xi Jinping can still act as a (falsely neutral) observer.


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