It is just the first week of the joint attack between the United States and Israel on the Islamic Republic of Iran, but the repercussions from the Middle East for the Indo-Pacific are already discernible.
Underpinned by its homeland securitisation and near-abroad dominance of the Western Hemisphere enunciated in National Security Strategy 2025 and National Defence Strategy 2026, now potentially overextended by its prosecution of war to topple Iran's theocratic regime, Washington's geostrategic bandwidth in the Indo-Pacific will likely be correspondingly curtailed.
In turn, the US's fluid priorities and objectives at home and elsewhere may well cede more latitude to China in its own neighbourhood and near-abroad. It does not necessarily mean China will attempt a takeover of Taiwan or the South China Sea anytime soon. But as US foreign policy and geostrategic posture are driven overwhelmingly by unilateral interests backed by raw power at the expense of traditionally shared values with allies and partners, Washington's loss of the relative moral high ground in geopolitics will be a boon to Beijing. China, for instance, can capitalise on the US's geostrategic preferences away from the Indo-Pacific by consolidating its patronage of regimes from Myanmar's military dictatorship to Laos and Cambodia's autocratic one-party rule.
Moreover, predominantly Muslim countries in Southeast Asia -- Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia -- are likely to view President Donald Trump's pre-emptive but unnecessary war on Iran and its consequent conflagration to the broader Middle East unfavourably. With significant Muslim minorities, the Philippines and Thailand are in the same boat. In fact, Southeast Asia as a whole has perceived the US under the second Trump administration as decreasingly reliable as an offshore security balancer vis-à-vis China. The ongoing Middle East conflict will only reinforce these regional perceptions and open more doors for warmer and tighter Southeast Asia-China cooperation on trade, investment, technology, and tourism.
China's official responses to President Trump's bold gambit to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife on Jan 3 and the dangerous gamble to attack Iran and kill its head of state, Ali Khamenei, on Feb 28 have been surprisingly restrained in view of substantial Chinese trade with and investments in both countries. The majority of Iranian and Venezuelan oil exports were purchased by China. The Maduro regime took in tens of billions of dollars in Chinese investments and loans, whereas Iran formed an anti-Western "CRINK" collaboration with China, alongside Russia and North Korea.
While the wording of China's official response to the US's Maduro capture included "strongly condemns", the case of Iran was milder. As its first reaction to the bombing, the Chinese foreign ministry's statement was "highly concerned over the military strikes against Iran…" After the Khamenei decapitation, Chinese officials used the word "condemn" but just once. Subsequent statements were critical but tempered and rhetorical. Unlike Russia, Iran has been a close partner of strategic convenience rather than commitment, as China's geostrategic interests are multifaceted and far-reaching in the broader Middle East. Chinese strategic planners also must have their eyes on the upcoming March 31–April 2 summit between President Trump and President Xi Jinping. Getting the US relationship right and managing it to build on the temporary de-escalation of trade and tariff conflicts from the preceding summit in Busan on Oct 30 is China's priority.
For the Indo-Pacific, if the US can swing its weight around the Americas all the way up to Greenland, then China may feel entitled to have its turn in its own neighbourhood. Apart from mainland Southeast Asia, which is now practically in China's orbit, the South China Sea will be a testing ground for the US's heft and wherewithal. After all that it has done in Venezuela and Iran, not to mention intimidation over Greenland and trade protectionism against economies in the rest of the world, the Trump II administration will be hard-pressed to criticise and counter Chinese manoeuvres against the Philippines in the West Philippine Sea. When the US is all about interests devoid of values, it could well lose its hitherto appealing and geostrategic advantages in the Indo-Pacific.
Much will now depend on how Mr Trump will extricate the US from what could shape up to be a morass in Iran. With eager and close support from Israel, the US war on Iran is akin to an (American) football game, where the Trump II administration can only get close to the end zone by throwing passes in hope that locals on the field will catch the ball and score with a three-point kick or a touchdown, because America is averse to rushing on the ground. But all passes and no rushes -- all bombs from the air and no boots on the ground -- will require collapse or capitulation from the opposing side, short of an unlikely popular uprising to effect regime change. The longer the entrenched and ruthless clerical Iranian regime can hold out with drones and retaliatory missile attacks, the tougher it will be for the Trump II administration.
Its best option would be to "declare victory and go home" for having sufficiently decimated and degraded Iranian offensive capabilities. The worst outcome is another American folly and a familiar quagmire that strangled US armed forces and governments over the past 60 years. There are scenarios in between that could result in a negotiated regime reorientation with a more pliant leadership and a more inward-looking state apparatus at the cost of continuing autocratic repression. While the Iranian regime is cornered and isolated, Mr Trump appears to have landed himself in a trap of his own making, inconsistent with what his government laid out in the recent NSS and NDS. No wonder China is not making a lot of noise and sitting out in wait for its turn.
The US's loss of a semblance of moral high ground will play to China's advantage. Washington's presence, role, credibility, and projection in the Indo-Pacific will be correspondingly impeded and undermined. Military muscularity is the new currency of geopolitics. Popular insecurity around the world in the face of wars and conflicts will benefit nationalist and right-wing parties and movements. This is a cruel and tough new world we will have to grapple with, navigate and get used to.
