The US Strike Against Iran: Implications for China’s Military
As the US engages in its second major military action in the matter of a few weeks moving from the kidnapping of the president of Venezuela in January to aerial and maritime strikes against Iran, it is worth asking what the implications are for China’s military ambitions and preparations.
For one, the Chinese have long learned from American military actions around the world adapting their military modernization and strategies accordingly. The first Gulf War led by the US against the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is now considered something of an eye-opener for Chinese leaders who saw their military as considerably backward and incapable in comparison to Western forces. Decades later, the Chinese military is considerably more advanced and has even overtaken the American navy in size. The gap between the two militaries in terms of actual capacity and reach, however, remains substantial.
Two, however, this has not prevented the Chinese from exercising their military power where possible. Indeed, China’s growing economic power and rising global ambitions have demanded action even when gaps remain. It has, bridged the gap and exercised military power with the help of diplomatic and other non-military tools. In the South China Sea, for example, China has long engaged in diplomatic parleys over disputed features dragging its feet on making any concrete commitments. In the meantime, however, it supported its civilian fishing fleets in expanding their range of operations, gradually began reclamation work and even promised the Americans that they would not militarise any features in the region. By never allowing matters to escalate to firefights even as it exercised physical muscle through its ship-to-ship confrontations and blockades, and by only using the maritime militias and coast guard, Chinese actions remained below a threshold that could have provoked US military action in aid of its allies.
In another instance, the Chinese used then US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022 to accuse the US of infringing upon “China's sovereignty” and to launch military exercises around Taiwan that have now become a regular feature. In effect, the Chinese have gradually pushed the envelope and undercut American military advantages in the region.
Three, focus on China’s immediate response to the attacks against Iran – limited to verbal condemnation of the violation of international law and the “fundamental norms of international relations” – should not draw attention away from how Chinese military support to Iran over the years has hastened the current moment. Consider, Chinese support for Iran’s ballistic missile programme which is what would have actually allowed the delivery of Iran’s nuclear weapons – if any were actually produced. China has provided the Iranians everything from rocket fuel to satellite navigation systems. In between, it has also exercised with Iranian military forces – in March 2025, in fact, it did so together with Russian naval forces in the Gulf of Oman in what was the fifth iteration of the trilateral exercise.
And if the Americans have claimed Iran’s suppression of its own people also explains its intervention then it is China that has bolstered the Iranian regime’s capabilities to do this over the years with technological support for latter’s surveillance measures against its own people, including facial recognition, and internet censorship among other things. It is probably one of the reasons why the Iranian regime will persist in its broad structure even if there are personnel changes and why there is a high likelihood that the conflict might be prolonged. In other words, China has created conditions that keep the US from focusing its full attention on the Indo-Pacific and on China. As a result, the Chinese military leadership might assess that it has still greater leeway for provocations and initiative on territorial disputes with its neighbours.
Finally, do American actions from Venezuela to Iran encourage or speed up the timeline for a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan? The answer has to be in the negative for the short term.
While external factors do play a role, the fact is that “reunification” is primarily a domestic political issue for Beijing. This means that the military option is not China’s primary approach but winning the island and its people over politically.
At the same time, it is also important for Beijing to be able to convey credibility to Chinese threats to take over the island militarily if Taipei were to declare independence or external (read US) support for the island encourages such a move. And it is this concern that is heightened when Chinese leaders observe American military prowess in action in Venezuela and Iran – given such American willingness to fight and dominance in military weaponry and technology, is the Chinese People’s Liberation Army truly capable of taking the island?
The military implications, if any, of the American actions might, therefore, be evident not in overt threats to Taiwan but in the repeated purges within the Chinese military. The fact that the anti-corruption campaign within the Chinese military has run for so long suggests that the problems extend beyond those of financial corruption and issues of political loyalty or factionalism. Over time, the only problem that can persist and which justifies the mass culling of China’s top military leadership has to be one of professional competence in delivering the goal of taking Taiwan by force. If in most political systems, military incompetence or failure can lead to firings and even the fall of governments – the consequences for the ruling Communist Party of China are naturally more severe given that its hold on power is tied to its ability to deliver on the “reunification” of Taiwan.
In short, the military purges in China are probably not as big a sign of weakness as they are made out to be but a sign that the system is correcting itself to achieve professional military goals. Recent American military actions will only push the Chinese to reform faster.
This article was originally published as Jabin T. Jacob. 2026. ‘What US wars mean for China's military ambition