A brief history of China's X-point plans for the Middle East
On the China-Pakistan 5-point plan to end the Middle East war
(source: Xinhua)
Pakistani FM Ishaq Dar was in Beijing yesterday, meeting with Wang Yi, and the two announced a 5-point plan to end the Middle East War. Not to be cynical - it’s a professional hazard for a political scientist - but I’m not holding my breath. The five points are:
an immediate ceasefire
the start of peace talks
an end to attacks on non-military targets such as power plants
the safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz
and respect for the UN Charter.
Really, there’s nothing to argue with there; all of these would be on my wish list. But I don’t think any of them are on the Iranian leadership’s wish list right now, so they’re not likely to come to fruition.
Still, a five-point plan sounds important and it was announced in Beijing so it’s driving headlines. I thought it would be useful to provide some context.
Here’s a list of Chinese X-point plans for the Middle East since 2013. I don’t think there were any before then.
2021 three-point vision for materializing the two-state solution
2021 five-point initiative on achieving security and stability in the Middle East
2021 four-point proposal on politically settling the Syrian issue
2023 three-point proposal for the settlement of the Palestinian question
2026 Five-Point Initiative for Restoring Peace and Stability in the Gulf and Middle East Region.
Looking at these, there’s a lot of consistency:
Calls for political solutions rather than use of force. Across the board there are consistent calls for de-escalation, negotiation and dialogue, opposition to military escalation or regime change, and calls for UN-led processes.
Emphasis on non-interference and sovereignty. The norm of states choosing their own future is emphasized, along with opposition to external powers imposing solutions or using sanctions.
Focus on UN and international law. This is consistent with PRC narratives about Western dominance and US hegemony - Beijing wants to see a more muscular position for the UN.
China’s position on Israel-Palestine hasn’t changed. The two-state solution is always there, and a return to 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital are as well.
Peace through Development has been featured more since 2021. This is a concept that has been emphasized more and more throughout Xi’s tenure, and with the Global Development/Security/Civilization/Governance Initiatives that started rolling out in 2021, it’s the normative underpinning of China’s approach to security, which is state-focused and directed more toward regime security through domestic policing and surveillance.
China is framed as a facilitator/mediator. This is also quite consistent, and the unspoken part is the implication that China is the constructive neutral partner while the US is not.
The important questions would be what did Beijing do to operationalize or implement these plans, and what actual outcomes did they contribute to? And in both cases, the answers are unimpressive.
In terms of implementation, China has adopted a range of mostly symbolic mechanisms. It has appointed special envoys on the Middle East (currently Zhai Jun) and on Syria (was Xie Xiaoyan, but the position seems to have been folded into Zhai’s portfolio in recent years), and FM Wang Yi is in the region frequently. Visibility is important, but also seems to be an end in itself. This current 5-point plan was preceded by a regional visit from Zhai, and Wang has been talking with everyone over the past month. China is seen as a diplomatic player, but its impact is marginal.
It uses convening power, with dialogue forums and the July 2024 Palestinian talks. Again, these don’t result in meaningful outcomes, and seem to be more about reputation enhancing and relationship building, both of which are important in diplomacy but don’t necessarily contribute to problem-solving.
And it uses economic statecraft, the most formidable tool in its box. In the CRINK report that I posted about earlier this week I wrote about China’s diplomacy with Iran in the run-up to the JCPOA:
Chinese officials emphasized the importance of Iran coming to a settlement on the nuclear issue. They offered incentives, describing how Iranian development could be facilitated through participation in China’s new One Belt One Road Initiative (later known in English as the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, in 2015). Speaking at an event in Iran, Ambassador Pang Lin “laid out very clearly…the link between resolution of the Iran nuclear issue and large-scale Chinese participation in Iran’s development.”
Using BRI integration, trade and investment pledges, and infrastructure development plans are incentives Beijing frequently uses in MENA. They work when governments need economic solutions to political problems, but they don’t mean anything during times of conflict. The immediate problems facing Gaza, Lebanon and Iran aren’t economic, and China’s development-centered solutions will mean something later, but until the first-level problems are addressed they remain abstract.
And yes, there has been limited mediation, both in the Saudi-Iran rapprochement and among the Palestinian factions in July 2024, but in both cases China’s role has been over-emphasized and in any case, the agreements haven’t proven durable.
In terms of outcomes, well, there haven’t been any. None of these X-point plans have resulted in meaningful change for any of the problems they are meant to solve. Which leads one to think that announcing a plan is the point. So what are they trying to achieve? I’d say Beijing wants to
showcase a consistent set of principles and norms for addressing international conflict,
be seen as participating in diplomacy,
develop relationships with regional actors,
distinguish itself from the US and West as a different type of extra-regional actor,
reinforce its narrative of South-South cooperation, and
show folks back home that the Party is capable of doing something useful diplomatically, which is probably most important given that in the Xi era the CCP has really undermined most of its Reform Era diplomacy.
Finally, a bit of shameless self-promotion. I’ve shared this report before but it’s relevant here. Last year I published “Present without impact? How the Middle East perceives China’s diplomatic engagement” with Atlantic Council. It was based on in-depth interviews with experts from Egypt, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE conducted in late-2024 and early-2025 to understand how informed people in MENA think of China as a diplomatic actor. The title gives it away. As one Arab participant said when discussing regional security concerns: “Is China the external actor that immediately pops up in people’s minds when they’re thinking about this issue? No.”
Jonathan, don't overestimate China. China itself remains, to this day, one of the direct victims of the U.S.-led hegemonic system. On the Taiwan issue, the United States has long maintained a structure that is both deeply interventionist and deliberately ambiguous. On the one hand, Washington officially recognizes the government in Beijing as the sole legal government of China and defines its ties with Taiwan as “unofficial.” On the other hand, it continues to arm Taiwan through the Taiwan Relations Act and has explicitly written into its own policy framework the goal of maintaining Taiwan’s capacity to “resist force or other forms of coercion.” For Beijing, this means that even the basic task of achieving national reunification at China’s own doorstep, and fully removing external interference from a core sovereignty issue, remains subject to sustained U.S. strategic constraint.
Under those conditions, asking China to project power thousands of miles away into the Middle East, or to act as a high-cost provider of security order in other regions the way the United States does, involves a serious category error. For a major power that has not yet escaped deep external obstruction on its most fundamental sovereignty question, the immediate strategic priority must be its own periphery: surrounding security conditions, national reunification, and the wider problem of strategic encirclement. It is not to replicate the American model of global security provision. That is precisely why China today offers the Middle East mostly principles, mediation, diplomatic platforms, and development cooperation, rather than military alliances, overseas garrison networks, or an enforcement-based order. This is not simply a matter of capability choice. It is also a consequence of China’s position within the international system.
But China should not be underestimated either. What still determines the trajectory of the Middle East is the regional balance of armed forces, the U.S.-Israel security nexus, the strategic choices made by Iran and its proxy network, and the risk calculations of the Gulf states themselves. As one commenter under the article noted, if Iran does not adjust its proxy strategy, and if the United States does not place real constraints on Israel, then the space for durable diplomacy is inherently narrow. China does not seek to become the dominant security provider in the Middle East, nor does it want to assume the role the United States has played over the past several decades: deep intervention, prolonged depletion, and repeated political liability. In that sense, China’s various “X-point plans” may indeed be unable to end wars. But they are not necessarily empty rhetoric. They also represent a repeated process of positional accumulation: continually signaling to regional states that China’s core stance is ceasefire, opposition to external interference, opposition to regime change, support for sovereignty, and support for a UN-centered framework. That kind of long-term predictability is itself a diplomatic asset.
Not sure we should fault Beijing for its paucity of diplomatic outcomes. As noted above, the region’s persistent issues are simply not amenable to diplomatic “solutions.” Until Iran abandons its support for regional proxies AND the US decides to use its influence to affect Israeli behavior in Gaza and southern Lebanon, there won’t be sufficient room for lasting and meaninful diplomacy. In this context, Beijing’s efforts can usefully be viewed as another instance of playing the long game