Summary
As the old adage goes, a friend in need is a friend indeed. As geopolitical tensions flare across the Middle East, a recurring question echoes through the international theater: Why haven’t China and Russia come to Iran’s rescue? Tehran increasingly finds itself targeted by Western sanctions and military pressure, yet its powerful northern and eastern partners remain largely on the sidelines.
Despite frequent Western hand-wringing over a burgeoning “new axis” of autocracies, the reality is that neither Moscow nor Beijing has the power — or the willingness — to confront the United States and the West militarily and directly on Iran’s behalf.
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To understand this reluctance, one must first look at the stark contrast between Western alliances and this so-called axis. On the Western side, there is little doubt that allies will fight to support one another if invaded, codified in bedrock agreements like NATO’s Article 5. Historical precedents for authoritarian alignment, by contrast, are weak. Even during World War II, while Germany and Italy fought closely together, Axis partner Japan fell short of full synchronization, primarily due to its geopolitical ego. Today’s authoritarian alignment is even more transactional.
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Furthermore, a powerful, unspoken rule of engagement has governed great-power politics since 1945: The U.S. and Russia (and formerly the USSR) have never engaged in direct military clashes. Instead, they have historically fought through proxies in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. Even in the context of recent proxy wars, when the U.S. and the West directly struck Russian allies in the past — such as Gaddafi’s Libya, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and Yugoslavia during the Kosovo crisis — Russia did not provide military support.
While some observe that the U.S. and NATO have similarly avoided direct combat against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Union’s strong and committed support to Ukraine makes Putin cry out that Russia is fighting the whole of Europe. As a result, Russia’s power has waned.
China’s historical playbook is equally cautious. While Beijing did directly fight the U.S. during the Korean War, it acted primarily as a Soviet proxy. Post-Korea, China has never chosen to fight the U.S. directly again. During the Vietnam War, for instance, Beijing restricted its role to logistics and rear-guard air defense, leaving the Vietnamese to fight on the front lines.
Therefore, while Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are deemed a “new axis” today, they do not act as real allies in times of war. While North Korea has at least sent some troops to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the two authoritarian giants, Russia and China, have done virtually nothing in terms of direct military engagement when partners such as Iran or Venezuela come under Western fire.
For China, the calculation is more complicated. Decades ago, Beijing stayed out of global conflicts because it was poor and weak. Today, although China’s military prowess is growing rapidly, its economic and trade interests remain deeply intertwined with the U.S. and the West. A direct conflict is fundamentally antithetical to China’s strategic interests unless absolutely unavoidable.
Deeper, still, is a systemic vulnerability that Beijing is loath to articulate: China’s political and social system remains fragile. The regime lacks the confidence to risk total war with the West, a reality underscored by its recent, sweeping purges of top military generals. If China does eventually choose to fight the U.S., its absolute priority will always be the Taiwan Strait, not the Persian Gulf.
Iran also cherishes its reluctance to rely on its partners, rooted in historical scars and deep domestic distrust. Its strategic culture remains shaped by 19th-century territorial losses to Russia under the treaties of Gulistan and Turkmenchay, the latter still a shorthand for national humiliation. Consequently, Iranian officials warn against overdependence on Moscow. Public sentiment echoes this, with a majority of Iranians opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
These frictions frequently manifest in concrete geopolitical disputes. Moscow infuriated Tehran by backing a Gulf Cooperation Council statement endorsing the UAE’s claims over the disputed Abu Musa and Tunb islands. Furthermore, Russia and Iran maintain the lowest voting alignment among the “axis” nations at the United Nations, diverging most sharply on nuclear issues.
Beijing has similarly alienated Tehran by backing UAE diplomatic efforts regarding those same islands, triggering fierce accusations of hypocrisy from Iranian commentators who contrast this with China’s hypersensitivity regarding its sovereignty over Taiwan.
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Economic imbalances further exacerbate Iran’s anxieties of becoming a captive market dependent on China. Iranian markets are flooded with China-made consumer goods, while the Middle Eastern country’s isolated oil sector is forced into unequal, deeply discounted, yuan-denominated arrangements. To compound these frustrations, major Chinese firms routinely abandon Iranian projects the moment U.S. sanctions pressure intensifies.
Overall, both China and Russia are too engrossed and stuck with their internal constraints and self-interests to fight externally for an ally like Iran. Tehran is left to face the West essentially alone, learning the hard way that in the framework of the new axis, “alliance” is often merely a word, not a rescue plan.
David W. Wang is a senior international business executive, geopolitical affairs consultant, analyst, and writer based in the Washington, D.C., metro area. David can be reached on X @DavidWWang203.