NOWADAYS, when the United States-Israel war against Iran is threatening to get out of control again, China’s apparent dogged resolve to stay out of trouble defies comprehension.
China appears to be just pushing on and on with its agenda, whatever it is.
No flinching.
No distractions.
Notice how China has distanced itself from the frenzy of the peace negotiations between Iran and the US.
Or, at least unlike Pakistan’s frantic urging for the Iran war belligerents to return to the negotiating table.
For China, it does seem that whatever happens in the Middle East, its effects will stay confined in the Gulf, and as far as China’s dealings with the rest of the world are concerned, they will stay focused on already programmed results.
This must be true. Otherwise, why persist in the phenomenon of China’s nonstop five-year economic development programs? Begun in 1953, the five-year series is now on its 15th edition (2026-2030), and counting.
At the launch of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, President Xi Jinping, secretary-general of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) central committee, urged senior party officials to ensure a good start for the program.
The officials included members of the Political Bureau and the Secretariat of the CPC central committee and members of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress, the State Council and the national committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference as well as secretaries and leading party members of the Supreme People’s Court and People’s Procuratorate.
In sum, the entire echelon of leadership of the Chinese political and economic structure.
Xi called on the officials to “keep in alignment” with the central party leadership in “thinking, political stance and action at all times, and take concrete steps to ensure that its decisions and plans are fully implemented.” The 15th Five-Year Program of China opened in March 2026 — in the period of the outbreak of hostilities between Iran, and the US and Israel.
This column had a serious discussion with a top official of the Jordan consulate in the Philippines during which he raised concerns on why China had not responded to the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, which began on Feb. 28.
“In fact,” the Jordan official said, “also to the kidnapping by US President Donald Trump of Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro.” In both instances of global impact, China had been intriguingly quiet.
Why? For lack of sufficient data, this column can at best only surmise.
But President Xi had, in fact, already given the guideposts to each and every Chinese official concerned by which China must act under any and all circumstances.
No matter that Iran’s military infrastructure has been massively damaged, its top leadership decimated. China had charted its course to take and Xi’s mandate had been for China’s development workforce to stay glued to that objective, make sure the Chinese people’s decisions in the 15th Five-Year Plan are “fully implemented.” But then again, talk about unforeseen intervening events. Like the sudden outburst of the Iranian conflict.
Isn’t China, if only moral-wise, for instance, supposed to interfere? In fact, for China’s own sake, it must act in the face of the situation. How sure is China that the simmering US-China animosity over Taiwan would not cause the spillover of the Iran crisis into the Asia-Pacific? But, in the first place, who says China had not “foreseen” what had been coming to Iran at that very inception of the 15th Five-Year Plan? We are no longer privy to the contents of the voluminous reports submitted to Xi by various people’s and CPC officials which all together served as foundation for the 15th Five-Year Plan.
Hadn’t Xi already familiarized himself with the impending US-Israel attacks on Feb. 28, 2026, such that they formed part of the formulation of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan? We are dealing with highly sensitive intelligence, security and diplomatic matters in which baseless speculation is quite perilous.
Nevertheless, consider this account on social media.
Before the outbreak of hostilities, Iran passed off decoy, poorly crafted jet fighters and fighter helicopters as Iran’s top-of-the line aircraft forming its main air defense. So, what the US and Israel used were superior aircraft that came blasting Iran’s military infrastructure while killing many of Iran’s leaders.
But what do you know? What Iran retaliated with for the high-end US-Israel attack aircraft were scores upon scores of 10-year-old drones and missiles that wreaked havoc on Israel and US military installations across the Middle East.
Now, very noticeable in video footage of the projectiles that hit Tel Aviv were the modular splittable types that split into eight just before hitting targets. For such a reason, in fact, the Israel Defense Force’s highly touted Iron Dome interceptors proved ineffective: one interceptor hitting one, yes, but missing seven.
After just one barrage of drones and missile attacks, portions of Tel Aviv were reduced to smithereens.
Now, accounts on social media disclosed that technology for those splittable drones remains a secret monopoly of China.
Who could have provided Iran with those splitting drones which neither the US nor Israel were capable of downing? Into its second month, the originally intended one-week war for defeating Iran is turning out into a nightmare for Trump.
Indications are that Trump is not going to recover.
On the home front, Americans are marching out on streets, demanding Trump’s ouster. Top military officials resign rather than kowtow to Trump’s war mania. Certain troops have been reported resigning rather than participating in Trump’s planned ground invasion of Iran.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has undergone a massive radical shift of alliances such that the US is left to fend for itself — that is, if a certain threat to efface Israel from the world map materializes.
As for China, it stays cool as it can be.
President Xi Jinping had issued the marching orders for the 15th Five-Year Plan, among which are: – Prioritize high-quality development, technological self-reliance and socialist modernization to advance national rejuvenation.
– Focus on enhancing economic resilience against global challenges.
– Promote green development — aiming for 25-percent nonfossil energy by 2030.
– Boost domestic consumption.
Any order for war? None that we know of.
Nor that a military general had made such an order.
It’s just that China has been keeping abreast with its one-track-mindedness: the undying vision of a world community of shared future.
It is that vision which in an astonishingly unrestrained, unstoppable momentum has been the one single impelling force for China’s five-year programs to push on and on and on.
Until literally in the wink of an eye, states all over the world perform their respective last independent acts as states and whereupon cease to exist.
Among the objectives cited by Xi in the launch of the 15th Five-Year Plan was what he termed as “modernization of socialism.” That is evidently a euphemism, to cushion the harsh impact of what in his “State and Revolution” Lenin calls “the withering away of the State” — what else but communism.
So, in the current Iranian conflagration, China must see no more need to crush the United States.
America is withering away.