China's position on the Strait of Hormuz - what "open" really means

There is some confusion as to why China’s UN ambassador just criticized the US-Bahraini resolution on the Strait of ‌Hormuz, given that Trump officials claim that the Chinese told Trump in Beijing that they agree that the Strait must be reopened.

The confusion may be about what “open” actually means in this context.

Based on my discussions with Chinese diplomats, “open” to the Chinese means that traffic flows through the Strait. Oil, gas, and goods come in and out. Money exchanges hands. Trade prevails.

It does not mean that there cannot be a mechanism where regional states charge a fee for the transit. Even with the fee, the oil can still flow. A blockade, however, is what keeps the Starit closed - not the fee.

While their preference understandably is that there is no toll at all, proposals are floating around that the Chinese are open to. They can live, for instance, with a regional mechanism that charges an environmental management fee. That is, a toll that isn’t framed as a toll.

So can the Trump administration, incidentally, though the US wants the mechanism to be fully regionalized rather than just managed by Iran and Oman.

Other GCC states - the UAE and Bahrain in particular - are dead set against this even if they were to be included in the mechanism. In their view, and their perspective tends to be curiously close to that of Israel, such a mechanism would give Iran undue geopolitical weight, and they prefer instead that the US go back to bombing Iran.

But China has other reasons to oppose the US-Bahraini resolution, which has garnered over 100 co-sponsors among UN member states. Though the draft resolution I have reviewed does not fall under Chapter VII - the previous one that Russia and China vetoed did not use the standard formula of “Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations” but did include an Article 39-style determination, “Determining that Iran’s actions … constitute a threat to international peace and security” - it nevertheless does pave the way for a subsequent Chapter VII resolution that would authorize the use of force against Iran.

This is not a new dance. It is, after all, the passing of these initial resolutions that eventually escalates to a Chapter VII determination, which raises the cost for Russia and China of vetoing that final resolution. Strangling the baby in the cradle is less costly, so to speak. The US does the same on resolutions criticizing Israel; it charitably vetoes resolutions that may have any potential of paving the way for putting any pressure on Israel - meaningful or symbolic.

But there is more. China knows that had Trump defeated Iran and overthrown the Islamic Republic, and taken control over Iran’s oil as he has with Venezuela’s, Beijing would be put in a very vulnerable situation. After all, Venezuela’s oil sales to China and Asia plummeted 92% after Trump overthrew Maduro in late December 2025 - from 600,000 bpd on average in 2025 to 48,000 bpd in February 2026 (the vast majority of this Asian oil goes to China).

Beijing cannot count on the GCC states to resist pressure from the US to block oil to China in that scenario. The only country in the Persian Gulf that can and likely will resist US pressure is Iran.

Thus, for China, acquiescing to an eventual Chapter VII resolution authorizing the use of force against Iran would amount to exposing itself to dangerous future U.S. leverage over its energy security.