Hong Kong, March 3 -- One by one, Chairman Xi Jinping's political leader friends abroad are being whittled down by US military action. First there was President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, and the latest is Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran after he was eliminated by Operation Epic Fury. Yet China can do nothing but wring its hands and lament unilateral American military action.

It is perhaps an irony that Khamenei assumed rule as Iran's supreme leader on 4 June 1989, the very day that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) was massacring protesters in Tiananmen Square.

China inked a comprehensive strategic partnership with Iran when Xi visited Teheran in 2016, but it has sat on its hands since Israel and USA commenced a bombardment of ...