As I am recording this on Friday, April 10, JD Vance is en route to Islamabad, Pakistan, for negotiations over a ceasefire announced on April 7. This ceasefire is shaky at best. It is clear that there was never a common understanding between Iran and the United States about what might be included in a ceasefire, but American and Iranian delegations are headed to Islamabad to discuss these details. My view is that this will likely be a long and drawn-out process with limited chances for meaningful progress in the near term. Still, the level of violence in the region is reduced from what it was before the ceasefire, and that is a good thing.

There has been some reporting that China played a backroom role in helping convince Iran to come to the negotiating table, which I find interesting given the wide range of views among the Chinese foreign policy elite about how Beijing should approach this conflict.

My guest today, Jacob Mardell, is Lead Analyst at Sinification, a Substack that tracks these very debates in Chinese foreign policy. He scours Chinese publications, blogs, and official statements to help the rest of us get a pulse on foreign policy debates in China. We have a long conversation about the contours of Chinese thinking about the war in Iran and the broader Middle East, including whether China might be willing or able to step in as a credible mediator, as well as the risks and opportunities China sees if the U.S. gets bogged down in another war in the Middle East.