US attacks on Iran test fragile truce with China

The detente between China and the United States was already fragile. Now it faces a new strain: the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, an American-backed strike that Beijing denounced as a blatant attempt at regime change. The strikes on Iran have laid bare the gulf between the two superpowers’ military capabilities. Despite its rapid investment in recent decades, China does not possess an army like the United States that can project power in any part of the world. That rankles Beijing, said Dylan Loh, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at NTU in Singapore, because it means no country — not even China — can stop the United States from taking whatever action it wants. “The demonstration of raw, hard power is something that will worry Beijing,” Loh said.

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