China Demands Reopening of Strait of Hormuz Amid Escalating Regional Conflict
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi has urged the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz during high-level talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Beijing. This comes as China, the primary buyer of Iranian crude oil, expresses growing urgency over defending global energy security and protecting international supply chains from escalating regional conflict.
The talks took place exactly one week before a scheduled summit in Washington between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, where US financial restrictions on Iran are anticipated to be a major topic of discussion. Wang Yi urged both Iran and the United States to remain rational and exercise restraint, explicitly pushing for both nations to return to the Islamabad memorandum and rebuild a negotiation mechanism based on previously reached agreements.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has pushed global oil prices above $100 a barrel, spiked maritime freight rates, and severely tightened global bunker fuel supplies at major refueling hubs like Singapore. The strait connects the Persian Gulf to global markets and traditionally carried roughly 20% of global seaborne crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG).