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White House officials are urging China to use its influence with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, just days before US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet in a highly-anticipated summit in Beijing.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on Chinese officials to use Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s visit to China to urge Tehran to release its chokehold on the critical waterway.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Araghchi on Wednesday, the official Chinese Xinhua news agency reported.
“I hope the Chinese tell him what he needs to be told,” Rubio said during a White House briefing on Tuesday. “And that is that what you are doing in the strait is causing you to be globally isolated. You’re the bad guy in this.”
The top US diplomat went on to argue that Beijing has been hit harder than Washington by Iran’s effective shuttering of the strait during the war the US and Israel launched on the 28th of February.
Beijing’s export-driven economy depends on shipments going through the strait. China also imports about half of its crude oil and almost one-third of its liquefied natural gas from the Middle East, according to China’s General Administration of Customs.
“It is in China’s interest that Iran stop closing the strait,” Rubio said.
A diplomat familiar with the matter also told The AP on Tuesday that the US has been engaging in serious efforts to persuade China to abstain from vetoing the most recent US-backed resolution at the United Nations Security Council, aimed at opening up the strait and condemning Iran’s actions.
China and Russia — Tehran’s two allies on the council — last month vetoed an earlier resolution on the Strait of Hormuz, saying it went too far and did not condemn the US and Israel for strikes that started the war.
Rubio’s push on China to get more involved came after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday that Iran would be high on the agenda when Trump meets his Chinese counterpart, in what is the first visit by a US president to China since Trump visited in 2017.
The effective shuttering of the strait is having an enormous impact on Asia broadly, a factor that seems to have informed the Chinese government’s efforts to consult with Pakistan to help mediate a two-week ceasefire.
Trump has said he believes China played a part in encouraging Iran to agree to a fragile ceasefire that was forged last month.
Three diplomats who were familiar with China’s behind-the-scenes efforts also confirmed that Beijing, the biggest purchaser of Iranian oil, used its leverage to get them back to the negotiating table as talks appeared on the brink of collapse.
But the Republican administration believes China can still do more to get involved in reopening the critical waterway to international maritime traffic.
“The threat of attacks from Iran has closed the strait — we are reopening it,” Bessent said in an interview. “So I would urge the Chinese to join us in supporting this international operation.”
Bessent added that the war in Iran sits high on the president’s agenda of items to discuss with Xi. Other important issues include trade, bilateral ties and China’s demands the US scale back its arms sales to Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing views as its own breakaway province.
Additional sources • AP