President Donald Trump says the U.S. military struck three sites in Iran, directly joining Israel’s effort to decapitate the country’s nuclear program in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe amid Tehran’s threat of reprisals that could spark a wider regional conflict.
China doesn’t want to make the same mistake as the USSR which is expending geopolitical power to maintain an entire hegemony against the USA. They’re content with making money and don’t spend a lot of energy keeping extreme espionage on every country like the USA does.
China knows the US will take the military option if confronted, which is to their disadvantage, so they’ll find every alternative path or method.
Biggest example is Pakistan. Its a massive CPEC project and defense partner, yet the military leadership in charge is basically a US lapdog because China knows if they try to pull the same regime change shenanigans, its just gonna end up like USSR vs USA 2 with a crap ton of proxy wars everywhere.
I think their longterm goal is to just slowly erode at the global economy. Even if the US owns the regime in the country, a significant portion of money will be going to China. They could choose to eventually use that power to reinforce their allies, but I think that’s still like 20+ years down the line.