Iran War Could Embolden Xi on Taiwan, Scholar Says

The ongoing U.S.-Iran military conflict is narrowing Washington's leverage over Beijing while potentially strengthening Chinese President Xi Jinping's strategic confidence toward Taiwan, according to a Taiwanese security analyst.

Chang Kuo-cheng (張國城), a professor at the General Education Center of Taipei Medical University, presented this analysis at a seminar titled "Cross-Strait Crossroads: From the Chinese Communist Party's 'Two Sessions' to the Trump-Xi Summit" on March 17.

Chang argued that China's 2026 "Two Sessions" — the annual plenary meetings of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference — centered on three strategic pillars: the consolidation and continuity of Xi's political authority; an economic policy shift from high-growth targets toward "institutional resilience"; and continued military modernization.

The U.S.-Iran conflict, Chang said, has provided Beijing with a ready-made narrative to justify all three priorities.

First, the targeted killings of senior Iranian officials by the United States and Israel — and reports of high-ranking Iranian military figures being turned — have, in Chang's view, effectively validated Xi's sweeping purges of the People's Liberation Army officer corps. They reinforce the party's insistence on absolute military loyalty.

Second, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and rising global oil prices have lent credibility to Beijing's longstanding push for domestic economic circulation, state enterprise dominance, energy independence, and green energy development, Chang noted.

Third, the scale and visibility of military action in the Middle East has given Chinese authorities a compelling public justification for continued heavy investment in military modernization — reinforcing the argument that the world remains dangerous and that China must be prepared.

China's ruling Communist Party views the prolonged conflict as a strategic observation opportunity — particularly regarding Taiwan and Beijing's broader pursuit of regional hegemony — even as it exerts pressure on the Chinese economy, Chang said.

From Beijing's perspective, a protracted war works in its favor, Chang said. The longer the conflict continues, the more China can study how it unfolds, he added.

While China's domestic economic headwinds are a concern, they are shared by countries worldwide — a factor that weighs little on a leader like Xi Jinping, who prioritizes political narrative over economic development, Chang said.

If the Trump-Xi summit is delayed, Chang suggested, this would be consistent with a pattern in which the party with fewer bargaining chips tends to slow the pace of high-level engagement. From Chang's perspective, it is currently Washington, not Beijing, that is in that position.

Washington's tariff leverage against Beijing has been significantly curtailed by rising oil prices and mounting domestic inflation, making further tariffincreases on Chinese goods likely to aggravate price pressures at home rather than extract concessions, Chang said.

The tariff tool is therefore unlikely to be deployed with any frequency, he added, noting it also faces legal challenges under U.S. domestic law.

With Washington's leverage over Xi Jinping currently limited, Taiwan has a clear interest in seeing the conflict resolved sooner rather than later — a protracted war, Chang argued, works against Taipei's strategic position.

Chang contended that the conflict is more likely to increase Xi's strategic confidence regarding Taiwan than to trigger caution about military adventurism.

His reasoning centers on China's nuclear status. Chang argued that the risks and difficulties of a "decapitation strike" against China's top leadership — a scenario Beijing has war-gamed since the first Gulf War — are vastly greater than those involved in targeting Iranian leadership. In Chang's analysis, Xi's concern about internal political opposition within the military hierarchy is likely a larger security preoccupation than the threat of an external strike.

Chang identified three concrete consequences of a prolonged U.S.-Iran war that could, in Beijing's assessment, improve the conditions for military pressure on Taiwan or outright use of force:

First, the sustained consumption of U.S. precision munitions and military assets in the Middle East could reduce America's material capacity to respond in the Indo-Pacific. Second, Washington's strategic attention may become divided between two theaters simultaneously. Third, a prolonged, inconclusive conflict could fuel domestic American war fatigue and political discontent — factors that Chang argued Xi may interpret as creating a more favorable window for coercive action across the Taiwan Strait than existed before the conflict began.

Chang urged Taiwan to strengthen domestic resilience across political, economic, and military dimensions before the conflict reaches any resolution. The core objective, in his framing, is to raise the perceived cost and difficulty of any Chinese attempt to exploit the current strategic environment — whether through coercion or direct military action.

With the Trump-Xi summit and the U.S.-Iran war both presenting as immediate variables, Taiwanese citizens must now seriously war-game worst-case scenarios and take active steps to guard against them, Chang said. （Related： South Korea Called Taiwan "China." Now Taiwan Is Calling It "South Korea." ｜ Latest ）

Chang called on Taiwanese society to reduce internal political divisions and avoid allowing existing fault lines to be amplified into a crisis.