More eyes than usual have turned towards maritime affairs this month as the war on Iran saw the closure of a key chokepoint in global trade—the Strait of Hormuz. Ever since the world’s ninth largest oil producer was attacked by the U.S. and Israel on 28 February, Iran has used its narrow local edge in drone, missile, and naval infrastructure to effectively blockade traffic to this 33-kilometre wide strait regularly responsible for around 25% of the world’s seaborne trade in petroleum products and liquefied natural gas (LNG). While the conflict has had a broad global impact on prices—with the Brent crude price peaking at $116 per barrel so far—it has been felt most acutely in the fossil fuel exporting gulf states (e.g., Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Bahrain and Iran itself) as well as key importers in Europe and Asia.

China imports almost half of its oil and 30 percent of its LNG through the Strait of Hormuz, and, while the EU is less dependent on the region’s oil, many Member States including Belgium, Italy, and Poland have grown increasingly dependent on strait-bound Qatari LNG supplies as the bloc has weaned off of Russian sources of natural gas. While leaders in both Brussels and Beijing have a vested increase in re-opening traffic through the strait, the bravado and furtiveness with which the U.S. and Israel launched this campaign have complicated deliberations for many of Washington’s ostensible NATO allies in Europe to join in any kinetic methods to end the blockade, while leaving Beijing both too rattled and indignant to respond favourably to the U.S. request to lend its support as well. The scorched-earth tactics with which Tehran responded to the joint operation also crossed a proverbial Rubicon for those hoping China could employ diplomacy effectively to coax Iran into ceasing its attacks and reopening the strait, while hopes that Chinese-flagged vessels would be exempt from the Iranian blockade have been dashed for the majority of the conflict.

Instead, efforts to resolve the war diplomatically are now reportedly being explored by the Trump administration in parallel to sustained pressure to attack Iran’s domestic energy infrastructure. Whether this is yet another smokescreen or the initial steps in a ‘Delcy Rodríguez solution’ to the Iran War—a resolution akin to what occurred in Venezuela earlier this year where hydrocarbons were allowed to flow following the replacement of a hostile leadership with a conciliatory one—only time will tell. Where it stands today, a negotiated surrender appears to be the preferred outcome for America’s ‘dealmaker-in- chief,’ while Israel seeks comprehensive regime change and has pursued these maximalist ends by attacking Iran’s civilian energy infrastructure unilaterally.

Regardless, it is clear that the conventional wisdom about complex interdependence in the energy sector overriding political motivations for military intervention is a thing of the past. Similarly, appeals to international law and freedom of navigation amid active conflict carry little weight while the U.S. President operates on the basis of perceived feebleness of his predecessors, the unsuitability of current international norms in securing his interests, and a Thucydidean reading of his country’s narrowing military gap with its rivals.

Against this backdrop, both Brussels and Beijing must reckon with a set of concrete strategic decisions in the maritime domain. The first is energy diversification. The crisis has exposed the structural vulnerability of both the EU and China to a single chokepoint, and accelerating diversification away from Strait of Hormuz-dependent supply chains should no longer be a long-term ambition but an immediate policy priority.

The second is escalation positioning. European states must define, before they are forced to, where they stand if the U.S. moves toward direct ground or naval action in the strait. Recent efforts by the UK to mediate a diplomatic re-opening of the strait, as well as a joint statement signed by several European actors endorsing “appropriate efforts” to resolve the blockade, reflect both a tactful ambiguity and real commitment; yet enduring disagreements within the coalition and the lack of consensus within the wider EU leave the bloc vulnerable to continued excoriation from both sides by its own citizens and the Trump administration. China, meanwhile, is walking a fine line between preserving its core strategic interests and leveraging its global influence to build consensus around a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.

The third is postwar alignment. If the Iranian regime survives in a weakened form, both the EU and China will need coherent positions on sanctions relief, reconstruction, and diplomatic normalisation, calibrated both to their economic interests and to how much goodwill (or friction) they have accumulated with Washington by that point. If a U.S. partner-driven regional order consolidates under an expanded Abraham Accords framework, the EU and China risk being structurally excluded from the new architecture of Middle Eastern energy politics unless they have laid groundwork now.

Ultimately, a quick fix that merely reopens the strait without addressing the underlying regional order could leave both actors vulnerable to the next disruption. The more durable interest—for Brussels and Beijing alike—lies in their positioning for and embrace of any settlement that produces lasting regional stability, even if that requires more difficult short-term diplomatic trade-offs with Washington or Tehran.