US President Donald Trump left for Beijing on Tuesday afternoon after weeks of unsuccessfully trying to persuade Chinese President Xi Jinping to pressure Iran to meet US conditions to end the war or at least reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
"Iran is largely under our control," Trump told reporters ahead of the trip. "Either we make a deal (with Iran) or they're going to be decimated. One way or another, we're winning," he said.
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Trump said he would consider the fate of the ceasefire during his flight to China and "in the next short period of time," and "we'll see what happens."
The US president said he would have a "long conversation" about Iran with Xi, but that trade would be a central issue.
"There are a lot of things we need to talk about. I wouldn't say Iran is one of them - to be honest, because we have Iran under very strong control," Trump said before leaving the White House.
Trump said he spoke with Xi and that both were looking forward to the visit: "He's a friend of mine. We get along. And I think you'll see good things happen."
Trump has tried to downplay differences with Xi over Iran and the shadow the war casts on global oil markets.
"We're going to have a long talk about this," Trump said, adding that he had a "relatively good" plan for how to discuss the conflict with Xi.
Trump has vacillated during the conflict between claiming that China, the world's largest buyer of Iranian oil, has not done more to bring the Islamic Republic back into line, and acknowledging that Xi's government helped de-escalate the conflict last month by encouraging Tehran to return to ceasefire talks.
Before the visit, Trump tried to downplay the need to persuade Xi to change China's stance on Iran, and his administration appears determined not to let differences over Iran overshadow efforts to make progress on other difficult issues in that complicated relationship.
These are issues ranging from trade, to cooperation in general, and preventing China's export of chemicals - a "precursor to fentanyl" - an extremely strong synthetic opioid analgesic used to treat severe pain, but in the US, as a drug, it is the leading cause of fatal overdoses.
Beijing publicly insists it wants an end to the war, and diplomatically it is working behind the scenes to help its ally Pakistan broker a peace agreement.
It also sent a "subtle message of displeasure to Iran" over the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and a message to the US over the blockade of Iranian shipping, said Ahmed Abuduh, a specialist in Chinese influence in the Middle East at the London-based think tank Chatham House.
"The Chinese are very cautious, risk-averse and don't want to be involved in anything that would drag them into something they don't consider their problem," he said.
In recent days, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Besant have stepped up calls for China to use its influence to help reopen the strait, through which about 20% of the world's crude oil flowed before the war began.
The State Department announced Friday that it was sanctioning four entities, including three China-based firms, for providing Iran with sensitive satellite imagery that enables Iranian attacks on U.S. forces in the Middle East.
Previously, the US Treasury Department targeted sanctions on Chinese refiners accused of buying oil from Tehran, as well as on oil shippers.
Beijing called the sanctions "illegal unilateral pressure" and put into effect a 2021 decision, never before used, that prohibits any Chinese entity from recognizing or complying with the sanctions.
Ahead of Trump's arrival, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosted his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, in Beijing last week. The Chinese foreign minister used the occasion to defend Iran's right to develop civilian nuclear energy.
Xi also implicitly criticized the United States for the war. He said that protecting the international rule of law was of utmost importance, adding that it "must not be selectively applied or ignored," nor should the world be allowed to return to the "law of the jungle."
Like Trump, Xi also has plenty of reasons not to let differences over Iran affect other aspects of the relationship, analysts say.
Beijing wants to protect itself from further deterioration in US-China relations, which would add challenges to its economy.
Yet since the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran in late February, there have been difficult moments between Trump and Xi that have threatened to undo the relative stability in their relationship.
China has long supported Iran's ballistic missile program and has supported it with dual-use industrial components that can be used to manufacture missiles, according to the US government.
Last month, Trump threatened to impose a 50% tariff on China after reports that Beijing was preparing to deliver a shipment of new air defense systems to Iran, but he backed off on that threat, claiming he had received a written assurance from Xi that he would not give Tehran the weapons. A few days later, Trump said the U.S. Navy had intercepted a Chinese ship carrying a "gift" to Iran. He offered no explanation.
Both Trump and Xi may want to avoid creating dark economic clouds, as they did last year, when the two powers appeared on the brink of a massive trade war.
Trump set tariffs on Chinese goods at 145%, and China announced further tightening of export controls on rare earths that would hurt American industry, and then both governments backed off from imposing maximalist penalties on each other. The two sides reached a fragile truce in their long-running trade dispute in October.
Trump and other US administration officials have argued that the Iran conflict, and particularly the closure of the strait, has caused more harm to China and its Pacific neighbors than to the United States, which is far less dependent on Middle Eastern oil and has an export-led economy.
"You can't buy from them if you can't deliver there, and you can't buy from them if your economy is being destroyed by what Iran is doing," Rubio told reporters last week, arguing that it was in China's interest for Iran to allow traffic to continue through Hormuz.
But for now, China has shown little interest in getting more deeply involved in this foreign conflict and has seemed reluctant to side with Washington.
"It's going to be difficult to deeply engage the Chinese under any circumstances," said Kurt Campbell, former deputy secretary of state during the Democratic administration of former US President Joseph Biden and chairman of the Asia Group.
"The Chinese want to be careful because they, like everyone else, see that this is political quicksand," he said.
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