The vice foreign ministers of China, Russia and Iran held their trilateral meeting on Iran’s nuclear issue in Beijing on Friday, March 14, 2025, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with the heads of delegations and announced his five-point proposal on the nuclear crisis. The opposition, who held in-depth talks, issued a joint statement and reiterated that political, coalition contacts and dialogue are the only feasible solutions. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said that they called on all parties to abandon sanctions, pressure and threats of force, and to refrain from actions that will escalate tensions.[1]
The emphasis placed on supporting Iran’s nuclear activities to serve peaceful purposes at the meeting. It is important in terms of changing regional and global balances because this alliance between the parties creates a balancing element against the United States (US), which stands out as an influential actor in the Middle East. In addition, China and Russia’s support for Tehran against the sanctions imposed on Iran will both facilitate their access to regional energy resources such as oil and natural gas and increase Iran’s regional power. However, Iran’s increasing nuclear activity and increasing its potential to develop nuclear weapons are causing the US and European countries to be concerned about the security of the Middle East.
The Beijing Meeting was a constructive effort by China, Russia and Iran to encourage a political solution.[2] This helped create an environment of political trust and strengthen regional stability. Furthermore, sanctions against Iran have lost their effectiveness in the face of Chinese and Russian support, once again revealing the global order evolving into a multi-centered structure. The emergence of alternative power elements to the US and Western centralism with each passing day will increase the importance of strategic alliances, bringing with it a balanced but also more complex process in the long term.
On the other hand, Mao Ning noted that China, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and a participant in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), supports resolving the Iranian nuclear issue through political and diplomatic means, maintaining the international nuclear non-proliferation regime, and promoting peace and stability in the Middle East,[3] while the three countries reiterated that political and diplomatic engagement as well as dialogue based on the principle of mutual respect remains the only feasible and practical option.[4]
Iran’s nuclear program is an issue that closely concerns China’s economic interests, especially energy security, including the 25-year strategic cooperation agreement signed between the two countries in 2021. In addition, Iran is a strategic transit point for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). For this reason, China will increase its activities in the region and take steps to strengthen its alliances, especially against Western influence. Similarly, as a country that has been under the influence of Western sanctions for a while, supporting Iran also contributes to the formation of a balance policy in the Middle East.
Speaking to the Global Times, Sun Degang, director of the Fudan University Center for Middle East Studies, said that the Iran nuclear deal signed 10 years ago has reached a critical point and that there are basically two approaches to solving this problem. One approach is the US strategy of excessive pressure, as seen during the Trump administration after the US withdrew from the deal. Sun said that this has led Iran to accelerate its uranium enrichment process and increased the risk of nuclear proliferation. Sun noted that China played a key role in this process, where all parties established dialogue, put aside their differences and sought common ground, and ultimately reached an agreement on the nuclear deal.[5]
It can be said that the Trump administration will change the unpredictability and normal balances. In his first term in 2018, Trump withdrew from the JCPOA agreement, which lifted sanctions in exchange for limiting Iran’s nuclear activities in 2015. This increased the pressure on Iran and increased its tendency to produce nuclear weapons. As Sun Degang also mentioned, the US’s unilateral pressure strategy has caused Iran to accelerate its nuclear program rather than giving it up. If this situation continues, it will lead to the strengthening of an anti-Western bloc in the Middle East and countries that are close allies of the US, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, adopting harsher policies, making it difficult to achieve stability in the region.
Another issue that Sun Degang focused on, the multilateral diplomacy approach, is important in terms of the continuation of the 2015 agreement and the establishment of an environment of cooperation in the international arena. At this point, China assumes a key role. If China’s mediating stance is also supported by the US, it will be possible to limit Iran’s nuclear program and a more balanced structure based on cooperation will be established in the region. Because in this process, while the role of actors such as Russia and China will increase, the influence of the US will decrease, and a balance of power will be formed in the Middle East in which multi-actor and multi-centered structures emerge geopolitically on the East-West axis.
The Beijing Meeting was an element where traces of the concept of “soft power” were found and drew attention to its importance at the global level. In this context, China underlined diplomatic dialogues by taking on the role of mediator and stood by Iran as an alternative ally to the West, thus reinforcing its identity as a peaceful and solution-oriented actor. Russia, on the other hand, emphasized its resilience against the West by taking part in the Beijing Meeting and demonstrated that it was an actor that supported a peaceful solution through diplomacy, in addition to its military power image in the Ukraine War, and thus displayed both its combative and mediating aspects.
China, Iran and Russia being a part of both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS will also allow the parties to consolidate their joint efforts in a more coordinated and stable manner by pursuing multilateral diplomacy. Thanks to the Beijing Meeting, strategies aimed at changing global balances and diplomacy were emphasized and Iran took its place as a key partner in these strategies. This meeting became an important part of the international arena where alternative power elements to the West increased. The three countries in this context gave an important message that the US-centered unipolar world order has ended and the process towards a multipolar world order has accelerated.
[1] “China makes five-point proposals on Iran nuclear issue, calling on relevant parties to abandon pressure, sanctions” Global Times,https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202503/1330125.shtml, (Date Accession: 14.03.2025).
[2] Ibid.
[3] “MOFA: China-Russia-Iran meeting is Beijing’s latest diplomatic effort”, CGTN, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-03-13/MOFA-China-Russia-Iran-meeting-is-Beijing-s-latest-diplomatic-effort-1BIfM1ERsU8/p.html, (Date Accession: 14.03.2025).
[4] “China, Russia and Iran urge end to unlawful sanctions”, China Daily, https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202503/14/WS67d3ceaba310c240449dad8d.html, (Date Accession: 14.03.2025).
[5] “China, Russia, Iran endorse dialogue for nuclear solution”, Global Times, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202503/1330159.shtml, (Date Accession: 14.03.2025).
