Historian Adam Tooze is a tall man who looms over the Chinese journalists pelting him with questions: “Mr. Tooze! Trump is planning to visit China in May. What do you expect from U.S.-China relations?”
It is a Monday in late March, and the British intellectual is about to deliver a lecture at the China Development Forum. The event brings together business leaders, executives, academics, and politicians from across the globe in Beijing to debate ideas and talk about business and investment. Roaming the convention center are figures ranging from the latest Nobel Prize winner in Economics, Peter Howitt, to Simon Trott, chief executive of Rio Tinto, one of the world’s largest mining companies. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump is focused on escalating tensions with Iran.
Tooze therefore chooses to open his talk provocatively: “We are living in an extraordinary moment full of contrasts.” The scene, he explains, has been made clear to him by the relentless questions from local reporters: on the one hand, they ask him to explain what on earth the United States is doing; moments later, they press him for his thoughts on China’s 15th Five‑Year Plan, the roadmap for the coming five years, which was approved last month. Bombs, chaos, threats, disruption, and volatility versus an orderly framework of political and economic planning. “That contrast, ladies and gentlemen,” he concluded, “is one I believe we can no longer escape.”
The clash between the visions represented by the two superpowers has intensified since Trump’s return to the White House. For many observers, Beijing already emerged victorious from last year’s trade war. The question now is whether China will also emerge as a winner from the United States’ war in the Middle East.
Faced with Trump’s erratic behavior, China has been one of the few countries to choose to strike back when hit — whether through the standoff over rare earths or its complaint to the World Trade Organization over Trump’s unilateral tariffs — while at the same time calling for diplomacy and multilateralism and presenting itself as a bastion of stability. If Trump announces a war, Beijing later emerges as the behind-the-scenes architect of the newly reached truce.
China appears to be capitalizing on the Trump era. In this fragmented world, where old alliances are faltering, China surpassed the United States in global approval ratings in 2025, with an average of 36% of people approving of Chinese leadership, compared to 31% for the United States, according to a recent Gallup global poll.
Although both nations have low approval ratings, this is the largest lead the polling firm has recorded for China in nearly 20 years. Previously, the country had only surpassed the United States during the George W. Bush administration (2001-2009) and Trump’s first term (2017-2021).
Tooze, for his part, confesses that he is living through a very Chinese moment in his life. “I’m chinamaxxing,” he said, using an expression popularized on social media among those who take up drinking hot water — a very Chinese habit — or consuming bubble tea, the well‑known tea with tapioca pearls.
Tooze has been studying the language and trying to understand the complex web of governmental mechanisms that have shaped the country into what it is today. In his talk, he argued that it is urgent for the West to make an effort to decipher the role of the Chinese Communist Party as the country’s “secret formula” for achieving what it calls “high‑quality development.”
In Beijing, there is an awareness that the Trump era functions largely as a reverse publicity campaign. In recent days, much has been made among analyst circles in the Chinese capital of the latest cover of The Economist — even though the magazine is censored in the country. It features a close‑up of Trump’s face, looking flustered; behind him, Chinese President Xi Jinping smiles calmly. The caption reads: “Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake.”
In the accompanying article, titled How China Hopes to Win from the War, the magazine argues that many in the People’s Republic interpret the U.S. incursion as accelerating America’s decline.
“Nobody really expected Trump to shoot himself in the foot so spectacularly,” said Brian Wong, from the Center for China Analysis at the Asia Society’s Public Policy Institute.
Among Trump’s miscalculations, Wong cites the Strait of Hormuz, which has been turned into a source of geopolitical leverage, similar to the one China’s leadership used against Trump during the trade war by exploiting its near‑monopoly on critical natural resources.
Wong believes that neither Beijing nor Washington predicted that “the United States would require China’s assistance” to get Iran to “moderate its stance.” He sees this as yet another point scored by the Asian giant — one that could weigh on the upcoming Xi‑Trump summit scheduled for May. The meeting had initially been planned for April, but the U.S. president chose to postpone it because of the war in Iran.
At that meeting, the extension of the trade truce reached in the autumn will be negotiated, and Wong believes that Beijing intervened precisely to push for a ceasefire in order to ensure the visit could go ahead — while also being driven by the need to bring an end to the disruption to energy markets.
Although the fragile ceasefire was the result of intense diplomatic efforts by Pakistan, an unexpected mediator, even Trump himself acknowledged China’s behind‑the‑scenes role. “I hear yes,” he told AFP. According to The New York Times, citing three Iranian officials, China’s last‑minute intervention — urging Iran to show flexibility — proved decisive.
Beijing, an economic and diplomatic ally of Tehran and the main destination for Iranian crude, strongly condemned the U.S. and Israeli military strike from the outset, just as it did the operation in Venezuela that forcibly removed Nicolás Maduro from power.
“We have been making active efforts to promote peace talks and end hostilities,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, has held as many as 26 phone calls with counterparts from what he described as “relevant countries.” In addition, China and Pakistan jointly presented a five‑point initiative aimed at “restoring peace and stability” in the Gulf and throughout the Middle East.
“This represents a major victory for Beijing,” analysts at Trivium China said in a bulletin published following the ceasefire announcement. “It reinforces its image as a peacemaker and a general force for global stability.” In addition to potentially keeping a friendly Iranian regime in power, it gains recognition from the United States, “laying the groundwork for a more fruitful relationship.”
Wong adds that the Iranian operation has been a “terrible disaster” in terms of the United States’ “credibility” as a deterrent force, which is a “win-win” for China. The expert think it is likely that Southeast Asian countries or even the Persian Gulf monarchies will rethink their security relationship with the United States and choose to approach Beijing.
In Asia, China is strengthening itself even further as a regional power. Most Southeast Asian nations now prefer China to the United States as a strategic partner, according to a survey this week by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. Further afield, other countries are also moving closer to China. For Canadians, the U.S. now poses a greater security threat than China, according to a Nanos Research Group poll for Bloomberg published in February.
“From China’s perspective, Donald Trump and his administration are making a pretty big mistake,” said Zicheng Wang of the Center for China and Globalization, sipping coffee in Beijing. He believes Washington is “trampling” on international law and the U.N. Charter. From a purely geopolitical standpoint, he adds, Washington is shifting military assets from the Asia-Pacific region to the Middle East, which “probably doesn’t displease Beijing.” This is compounded by the squandering of resources on an “immoral” war, launched “without a clear objective,” in which “civilians and children” are dying.
The campaign has come at a cost: “The United States’ international image and soft power have diminished considerably.” Even so, he believes the Chinese government has had strong reasons to try to bring the war to an end, since it undermines the very kind of globalized world in which China has prospered over recent decades.
Wang also argues that observing U.S. military might in action has validated Beijing’s strategy of investing in and modernizing its armed forces. Disruptions to gas and oil supplies have likewise helped legitimize Xi’s push for energy security, as well as his bet on renewable technologies — a field in which China is a global leader.
All these points, of course, are included in the Five-Year Plan that historian Adam Tooze mentioned in his talk: “This is the challenge, I think, that China poses for the West.”
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