The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday strongly condemned the US military blockade on Iranian ports as “dangerous and irresponsible” and warned that it risks the very fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran.
“With the temporary ceasefire agreement still in place, the United States ramped up military deployment and resorted to a targeted blockade. This will only aggravate confrontation, escalate tension, undermine the already fragile ceasefire, and further jeopardize safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told reporters.
“It is a dangerous and irresponsible move. China believes that only a complete ceasefire can fundamentally create conditions for easing the situation. We urge relevant parties to honor the ceasefire agreement, stick to the direction of peace talks, and take concrete actions to de-escalate the situation so that normal traffic via the Strait will be able to resume as soon as possible,” Guo added.
According to Reuters, three ships, including two oil tankers under US sanctions, entered the Persian Gulf on Tuesday, the first full day of the US blockade. The US military has said that it will block any ships traveling to or from Iran, and according to the Reuters report, the three vessels were heading to non-Iranian ports.
A Chinese-owned tanker, the Rich Starry, left the Gulf and traveled out of the Strait of Hormuz, but it appears to have turned around, as the latest ship-tracking data shows it heading back into the Gulf near the coast of Iran. The ship’s last port of call was Hamriyah in the UAE, where it loaded 250,000 barrels of methanol. The US military is enforcing the blockade on warships in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.
China imports a significant amount of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf, but it is less reliant on the region than key US allies in East Asia, and has so far weathered the crisis caused by the US-Israeli war against Iran better than South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. China also has a major stockpile of Iranian oil, as its imports from Iran increased after the start of the US-Israeli war.
The US blockade on Iran comes ahead of a planned summit between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, scheduled for May 14 and May 15 in Beijing. On Tuesday, Xi hosted Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, and made comments on the situation in the Middle East that were seen as a veiled swipe at the US.
“The authority of the international rule of law should be upheld and cannot be used when convenient and discarded when not,” Xi said. “We must not allow the world to revert to the law of the jungle.”
