China was among the first and most vocal opponents of the U.S. military intervention in Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro. Curiously, though, when U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to launch military strikes against Iran as Tehran dealt with a massive popular uprising, China was largely silent.

Both Venezuela and Iran have high-level strategic partnerships with China, yet the Chinese leadership's responses to the crises in each country are radically different.

William (Bill) Figueroa, a leading China-Iran scholar and an assistant professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, joins Eric to discuss his latest CGSP column, which explains Beijing's low-key response and why the strategy is often misunderstood by many U.S. and European stakeholders.

📌 Topics covered in this episode:

• Why Iran's latest protests are more serious than past unrest
• How the crackdown escalated and what makes it unprecedented
• U.S. regime-change talk and the "boxing in China" narrative
• China's real exposure to Iranian and Venezuelan oil
• Debunking the myth of a deep, all-weather China–Iran alliance
• Why Beijing stayed quiet on Iran but reacted strongly on Venezuela
• Hard power limits and why China won't intervene militarily
• The quiet influence China already exerts behind the scenes

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