Iran’s foreign minister will arrive in China on Wednesday as Beijing comes under increasing pressure from Washington to help open the Strait of Hormuz ahead of US President Donald Trump’s summit with China’s Xi Jinping.
What happened: China’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will meet with Araghchi during the visit. A statement from Iran’s Foreign Ministry posted on Telegram read that the two would discuss regional and international developments.
The ministers have held at least three phone calls since the outbreak of hostilities between the US, Israel and Iran on Feb. 28. In their most recent call on April 15, Wang said China “stands ready to continue to facilitate de-escalation.”
US President Donald Trump is expected in Beijing on May 14-15, where he is set to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Know more: US officials are pressing China to take a more active role in easing tensions. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Monday that Beijing should “step up” efforts to pressure Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the key shipping lane that has been heavily disrupted since the conflict began on Feb. 28.
“Let’s see them step up with some diplomacy and get the Iranians to open the strait,” Bessent said, adding, “The attacks from Iran have closed the strait. We are reopening it. So I would urge the Chinese to join us in supporting this international operation.”
Iranian attacks in the strait brought traffic there to a near halt. The US later imposed a blockade on Iranian ports and ships in the waterway.
On Sunday, Trump announced a new US military operation to guide international commercial vessels out of the strait “so that they can freely and ably get on with their business,” he said. US Central Command said on Monday that the US Navy had deployed at least two guided-missile destroyers to the Gulf ahead of the operation.
Background: China is Iran’s largest buyer of oil, a relationship that has helped sustain Tehran’s exports despite US sanctions. Much of Iran’s crude is transported via a so-called “shadow fleet” of vessels that obscure their origins and destinations before being refined in China by small private processors known as teapot refineries.
Over the weekend, China’s Ministry of Commerce ordered domestic companies not to comply with US sanctions targeting five Chinese oil refiners linked to Iranian crude imports, invoking a rarely used legal mechanism introduced in 2021 that is designed to counter what China considers unjustified extraterritorial application of foreign laws.
On Friday, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on exchange houses it said facilitate billions of dollars in foreign currency transactions for Iran annually. Iran largely conducts its oil trade in Chinese yuan.