BEIJING

THE ALMOST COMPLETE silence from Beijing in the face of the military assault being inflicted on China’s one-time friend, Iran, by Israel and its American allies, speaks to two realities: 1. China’s friendship is calculated; and 2. China is watching and counting.

“Apart from selling to the world, and importing from the world, the Chinese don’t have a terrific interest in getting overly involved in the world beyond its immediate neighborhood,” says Captain Stilwell Tiger of the Mad Mike Boer Institute, a liberal South African think tank. “The Chinese devote their energies to keeping China together. Because the alternative is awful. Of course, the issue of Taiwan is central to that focus. And in that, the Chinese will be watching the effect of the US military machine on Iran, and counting the weapons Washington uses in its Persian Gulf campaign. Beijing is happy to let Iran suffer for the information it provides and the fatigue it inflicts on the Americans. Iran can always be rebuilt.”