The US-China summit ended without any discernible progress on the twin urgent security issues dividing the two superpowers: Iran and Taiwan.
Some speculated that a deal was in the offing that would trade the island for Chinese pressure on Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz. That did not materialize, but such a hypothetical deal is not the only plausible connection between these two volatile security issues.
Washington’s military campaign against Tehran, a middle power, is raising critical questions of just how successful the US would be in a war against China, our only near-peer rival.
This conversation has also been prompted by America’s massive expenditures on high-tech munitions – an arsenal thought needed to defeat a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan. As my colleague Jennifer Kavanagh wrote recently in the New York Times, “the United States finds itself facing strategic defeat by a weaker adversary” in Iran.
She also made the astute observation that the Pentagon is conducting the Iran war similarly to how it would against China, relying heavily on air and naval power while keeping its surface fleet well back from the adversary’s coast, deploying large numbers of drones and stand-off, stealthy missiles.
In fact, the war in Iran has many parallels to a hypothetical conflict with China, and America’s performance so far does not instill confidence.
Iran has proven to be a much more formidable opponent than many Washington strategists anticipated. No doubt this misunderstanding is partly attributable to Tehran’s lack of major response to the American strikes against its nuclear facilities in June 2025.
This evident strategy of feigning weakness could be traced back to the legendary Chinese strategist Sun Tzu. So it’s quite conceivable that the same phenomenon — namely, the US underestimating the strengths of a possible adversary — is at work in the Asia-Pacific.
A core plank of Iran’s strategic success has been its ability to employ large numbers of mobile, accurate, short-range ballistic missiles. It’s likely not a coincidence that China constructed the world’s largest conventional, short-range missile force two decades ago.
Tehran’s missiles are supplemented by myriad drone designs, as well as satellite intelligence to guide them. And many suspect that Tehran obtained drone technology from China and is getting crucial satellite targeting data from Beijing in the present conflict.
China today has a large, sufficiently advanced satellite constellation that can track all major US military platforms, including aircraft carriers, in real time.
One of the key lessons of the US-Iran war is that US bases on allied territory represent prime targets and can be hit hard, with major impacts on US military effectiveness.
A variety of high-value systems, including expensive radars, early warning aircraft, and refueling aircraft, have been hit on the ground by Iranian missile and drone attacks. This has worrying implications for the utility of our bases scattered throughout East Asia.
True, Japan is better defended than the Gulf states, but US bases in Japan are not really hardened against missile and drone attacks with concrete revetments, for example. Moreover, as Iran has likewise done, Beijing could undertake coercion by attacking undefended civilian infrastructure sites, such as power stations or ports.
A related point concerns low US munitions stocks. Even before the Iran conflict, many American strategists believed the US was short on weapons that would be required for a hypothetical war against China.
It’s true that some key munitions, like torpedoes, have not been substantially used against Iran. But others, especially Patriot missile interceptors and both the LRASM and JASSM air-launched cruise missiles, are assessed to be severely depleted.
Another troubling parallel concerns the possibilities for blockades and counter-blockades. Many experts believe a Chinese blockade could be successful against Taiwan because the island imports much of its food and most of its energy.
A US counter-blockade would then be likely, in part because Washington lacks other low-risk options. However, unlike Iran, China has a world-leading navy that wields not only modern destroyers and submarines but weapons that exceed US. Navy capabilities, for example, in the key domain of anti-ship cruise missiles.
Yet, wars are not just won with better weapons, but by people inspired to sacrifice and even die in large numbers. On this score, the US military has been forced to yield to such highly motivated opponents as the Vietcong in Vietnam and, more recently, to the Taliban and even the Houthis.
The “balance of fervor” in the present conflict also distinctly favors Iran, since the Trump administration has put Tehran on “death ground,” a situation wherein its very survival is threatened.
In a Taiwan conflict, similar logic is likely to prevail since Taiwan is viewed as a core interest by Beijing, whereas most Americans have little or no knowledge of the self-governing island.
Therefore, simple common sense dictates that Washington should be ultra-cautious about a possible war with China. Unlike Iran, which could charitably be termed as an aspiring “middle power,” China today is a genuine superpower and Americans need to realize this.
Beijing possesses not only advanced nuclear systems and very formidable conventional forces but also a strong economy that features the world’s leading manufacturing base. When combined with the favorable geography and “balance of fervor,” a Taiwan scenario genuinely appears untenable from the US perspective.
Some will argue that Taiwan is much more important to global security than Iran, but that is mainly specious reasoning. In fact, no US vital interests are at stake in the Taiwan Strait.
President Trump’s recent remarks on this matter, which have sent a shock wave through the foreign policy elite in Washington, suggest he realizes this. It’s indeed logical for the US to try to de-escalate this most volatile powder keg, particularly as it plays an increasingly weak hand.
Lyle Goldstein is director of Asia engagement at Defense Priorities. Goldstein serves concurrently as director of the China Initiative and senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.
