States like China and Russia that can provide energy, industrial inputs, strategic reassurance or room for manoeuvre are gaining weight
3-MIN READ3-MINHao NanPublished: 8:30pm, 2 Apr 2026A month into the Iran war, Washington still says it expects to achieve its objectives in weeks, not months. That may prove optimistic. The terms on offer from the United States and Iran barely overlap, and markets remain unconvinced a durable settlement is close. But one fact is clear: the war’s most consequential effects may be felt not only in the Middle East but across East Asia.It would be a mistake to see this as only an oil story. It is also about hierarchy. In East Asia, the war is revealing which powers matter most when sea lanes are disrupted, gas prices surge, supply chains tighten and American military attention is stretched across multiple theatres. The states that can provide energy, industrial inputs, strategic reassurance or room for manoeuvre are gaining weight. Those that cannot are losing it.
The result is not a simple geopolitical realignment in which countries suddenly switch sides. It is subtler than that, and potentially more enduring.
Iran’s war is pushing East Asia towards a harder, more transactional order: Russia becomes more valuable as an emergency energy supplier; China becomes more valuable as a functional industrial stabiliser; US allies become more cautious about entrapment and overdependence; and regional states look more seriously at hedging, compartmentalisation and resilience.
