As Israel and then the United States battered Iran this month, the reaction from China and Russia was surprisingly muted. For years, shared antagonism toward the U.S. has been pushing China, Russia, and Iran together. All three benefit from embarrassing the West in Ukraine and the Middle East, and widening the gaps between Washington and Europe. So after Israel’s first strike, on June 13, China—the strongest partner in the anti-America triad—could have been expected to rush short-range missiles and other air-defense equipment to Iran. Surely, Beijing would use its growing diplomatic muscle to isolate Israel and the U.S., demand an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council, and introduce a resolution deploring the two governments that were attacking China’s ally.
当以色列和当时的美国本月殴打伊朗时，中国和俄罗斯的反应令人惊讶地陷入了困境。多年来，对美国的分享对抗一直在将中国，俄罗斯和伊朗推动。这三个都受益于使乌克兰和中东的西方尴尬，并扩大了华盛顿和欧洲之间的差距。因此，在6月13日，以色列首次罢工之后，中国是反美三合会中最强大的合作伙伴，可以预计将把短距离导弹和其他防空设备送往伊朗。当然，北京将利用其日益增长的外交肌肉来隔离以色列和美国，要求联合国安全理事会紧急会议，并提出一项决议，对攻击中国盟友的两个政府感到沮丧。
Instead, recent events in Iran have revealed that anti-Americanism can bind an alliance together only so much.
取而代之的是，伊朗最近的事件透露，反美，只能将联盟绑定在一起。
Read: Why isn’t Russia defending Iran?
阅读：为什么俄罗斯不捍卫伊朗？
After ritually denouncing Israel’s first strike as “brazen” and a “violation of Iran’s sovereignty,” Beijing proceeded cautiously, emphasizing the need for diplomacy instead of further assigning blame. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi refrained from condemning Israel’s actions, in a call with his Israeli counterpart on June 14, and President Xi Jinping waited four days before calling for “de-escalation” and declaring that “China stands ready to work with all parties to play a constructive role in restoring peace and stability in the Middle East.”
在仪式上谴责以色列的第一次罢工为“粗暴”和“违反伊朗的主权”之后，北京谨慎地继续进行，强调了对外交的必要性，而不是进一步归咎于责备。中国外交大臣王伊（Wang Yi）在6月14日与以色列同行的电话中避免了谴责以色列的行动，习近平总统等了四天，随后呼吁“退化”，并宣布“中国准备与所有党派合作，在恢复中东的和平与稳定中起着建设性的作用。”
After Iran’s Parliament voted to close the Strait of Hormuz, Beijing’s foreign-affairs spokesperson stressed—in what looked like a warning to Iran—that the Persian Gulf is a crucial global trade route for goods and energy, and called for partners to “prevent the regional turmoil from having a greater impact on global economic growth.”
在伊朗议会投票决定关闭霍尔木兹的海峡之后，北京的外交诉讼发言人强调，在对伊朗的警告中，波斯湾是商品和能源的全球贸易路线，并呼吁合作伙伴“防止对全球经济增长产生更大的影响”。
In calmer times, China, like Russia, is happy to use Iran as a battering ram against the U.S. and its allies. But when tensions turn into military confrontation and global stability is at risk, backing Iran looks like a far less sensible investment to Beijing than preserving its own economic and diplomatic relations with the West. China’s mild reaction isn’t just a blow to Iran; it may also suggest that the much ballyhooed “no limits” partnership between Xi and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin might not be as sturdy as Moscow and Beijing advertise.
在平静的时期，中国像俄罗斯一样，很高兴将伊朗用作对抗美国及其盟友的殴打公羊。但是，当紧张局势变成军事对抗和全球稳定处于危险之中时，支持伊朗对北京的投资比维护自己与西方的经济和外交关系要差得多。中国的温和反应不仅是对伊朗的打击。这也可能表明，习近平和俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京之间的肉体“无限制”伙伴关系可能不像莫斯科和北京广告那样坚固。
Iran, Russia, and China have different ideologies, political regimes, and strategic aims. Iran’s relations with its two larger partners are wildly asymmetric.
伊朗，俄罗斯和中国具有不同的意识形态，政治制度和战略目标。伊朗与两个更大的合作伙伴的关系非常不对称。
Read: The invisible city of Tehran
阅读：看不见的德黑兰市
China, for example, is Iran’s lifeline. It buys about 90 percent of Iran’s oil and supplies materials and technologies central to Iran’s weapons development. Yet the trading relationship matters less to China, which gets only about 10 percent of its oil from Iran. Plus, China has an economy more than 40 times as large, and it does far more business with the U.S. and the European Union.
例如，中国是伊朗的生命线。它购买了伊朗的大约90％的石油，并提供伊朗武器开发中心的材料和技术。然而，贸易关系对中国的重要性较小，中国仅获得了伊朗石油的10％。另外，中国的经济规模超过40倍，它与美国和欧盟的业务更大。
Russia has interests that similarly diverge from Iran’s, and it, too, has conspicuously refrained from coming to the Islamic Republic’s aid. But China following a similar approach toward Iran likely does not please Moscow. Although Moscow’s relations with Beijing are less lopsided than Tehran’s are, Russia’s economy is still less than one-eighth the size of China’s. One-third of Russia’s state budget comes from oil sales, and China is the largest customer by far. Russia also depends on Chinese supplies for its war machine. This past March, the G7 foreign ministers called China a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war in Ukraine. But should the Kremlin begin to run out of money or soldiers, China’s willingness to bail out its ally is very much in doubt.
俄罗斯的兴趣与伊朗的兴趣相似，而且它也明显地避免了来到伊斯兰共和国的援助。但是，以类似的方式对伊朗采取类似方法，中国可能不会让莫斯科取悦莫斯科。尽管莫斯科与北京的关系比德黑兰的关系少，但俄罗斯的经济仍小于中国规模的八分之一。俄罗斯国家预算的三分之一来自石油销售，而中国是迄今为止最大的客户。俄罗斯还取决于中国的战争机器。去年三月，七国集团外交部长称中国为俄罗斯战争在乌克兰战争的“决定性推动者”。但是，如果克里姆林宫开始用完金钱或士兵，中国愿意救助其盟友的意愿非常有疑问。
Even among authoritarian regimes, differences in values can limit cooperation. In 2023, Xi called Russia’s 1917 October Revolution a “cannon blast” that “brought Marxism-Leninism to China, demonstrating the way forward and offering a new choice for the Chinese people who were seeking a way to save China from subjugation.” Putin, despite his formative years in the Soviet-era KGB, now laments the fall of the Russian empire and describes Vladimir Lenin’s coup as the deed of “political adventurists and foreign forces” who “divided the country and tore it apart for selfish benefit.” The head of China’s Communist Party may resent Putin’s reduction of its Russian counterpart—the country’s second-largest party—to the status of another bit player in Russia’s rubber-stamping Parliament.
即使在专制政权中，价值观的差异也会限制合作。2023年，习近平称俄罗斯1917年10月的革命“加农炮爆炸”，“将马克思主义列宁主义带到了中国，展示了前进的道路，并为寻求一种拯救中国免于征服的中国人民提供了新的选择。”尽管普京在苏联时代的克格勃（KGB）中成长时期，但现在对俄罗斯帝国的沦陷感到遗憾，并将弗拉基米尔·列宁的政变描述为“政治冒险家和外国力量”的行为，他们“将国家分裂并撕裂了，以自私为利益。”中国共产党负责人可能会对普京减少其俄罗斯同行（第二大政党），以使俄罗斯橡皮图街区议会的另一个位球员的地位。
Since World War II, leaders of Western democracies have successfully collaborated in part because they have shared a common worldview. Whether Iran’s Islamic theocrats can say the same about Xi, the leader of an avowedly atheist state, or Putin, who now positions himself as the champion of Orthodox Christianity, is another question entirely.
自第二次世界大战以来，西方民主国家的领导人成功地合作是因为他们分享了共同的世界观。伊朗的伊斯兰神学人是否可以对XI的领导人XI说同样的话，还是现在将自己定位为东正教基督教的拥护者的普京，这完全是另一个问题。
Beijing’s response to Iran’s predicament ought to make the West feel cautiously optimistic. If Donald Trump finally learns to distinguish the aggressor from the victim—or at least realizes that Putin has been playing him—the U.S. president could support Ukraine in earnest without worrying much about China expanding its assistance to Russia. As long as both Iran and Russia keep providing cheap oil and antagonizing the West and its allies, they are serving China’s purposes. But at least for now, Beijing looks unlikely to back either of its supposed partners if they jeopardize China’s interest in stability or its extensive and profitable relations with the West.
北京对伊朗困境的反应应该使西方谨慎乐观。如果唐纳德·特朗普最终学会将侵略者与受害者区分开，或者至少意识到普京一直在扮演他 - 美国总统可以认真支持乌克兰，而不必担心中国将其援助扩大到俄罗斯。只要伊朗和俄罗斯都提供便宜的石油并与西方及其盟友抗衡，他们就可以为中国的目的服务。但是至少目前，如果北京危及中国对稳定的兴趣或与西方的广泛和有利可图的关系，北京似乎不太可能支持其所谓的合作伙伴。
