Senior diplomats from Iran and Cuba have made back-to-back visits to Beijing this month, underscoring a deepening relationship between Beijing and two states under heavy US sanctions. China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, received a Cuban envoy and offered public assurances of political and material support, while an Iranian deputy foreign minister also travelled to China for talks. These meetings are part of a broader pattern of engagement that Beijing describes as “development-oriented” diplomacy: offering economic cooperation and political backing to states isolated by Washington.
The diplomatic ballet is unfolding against a backdrop of intensified US pressure on Iran and Cuba, including sanctions aimed at cutting off oil and finance. Havana has faced acute shortages and intermittent power problems, and Chinese assistance—ranging from food shipments to proposals for photovoltaic projects—has become an important element of Cuba’s efforts to stabilise supplies and diversify its economy. For Tehran, sustaining trade, technology transfer and political cover from Beijing helps blunt the impact of US-led financial constraints and offers alternative markets and suppliers.
Beijing’s engagement with Tehran and Havana is strategic as well as pragmatic. China frames its assistance as non-confrontational support for sovereignty and development, but the practical effect is to build resilient economic and political networks that reduce the leverage of unilateral sanctions. The result is a tacit security of supply for sanctioned states and an expanding sphere of influence for China that does not rely on military forward-deployment but on economic interdependence and diplomatic solidarity.
Observers in Washington and allied capitals are watching closely because these relationships complicate US policy choices. Enhanced ties with China make coercive measures more costly and less likely to achieve rapid change, particularly when potential targets have lifelines in Beijing and Moscow. The Cuban case is instructive: observers note that Havana’s political structure, range of economic activities and international backers differ markedly from Venezuela’s recent collapse, making a repeat of Caracas’s trajectory far from inevitable.
There are limits and risks for all parties. Cuba’s economic recovery depends on structural reforms, sustained investment and tourism revival—areas where China can help but not fully substitute for market access in the West. Iran’s integration with global finance and high-tech sectors remains constrained, and closer alignment with Beijing may further complicate its interactions with non-aligned partners. For China, expanding ties with sanctioned regimes carries reputational and transactional risks, including secondary sanctions exposure and strains with European and other partners.
Still, the pattern is significant. China is using economic tools and high-level diplomacy to offer an alternative form of international support to states under US pressure, shaping a diplomatic landscape in which sanctions are less deterministic. That matters for global governance: if more countries choose hedging and diversified partnerships, the efficacy of unilateral pressure will be reduced and diplomatic competition will intensify around infrastructure, energy and financial linkages.
For Havana and Tehran the immediate payoff is survival and room for manoeuvre; for Beijing the payoff is influence and expanded market access. For Washington, the challenge is to recalibrate instruments of statecraft that rely on isolating opponents when rivals can step in with pragmatic, if politically fraught, alternatives. The coming months will test whether these ties translate into durable strategic partnerships or remain episodic responses to sanctions and seasonal shortages.