Politics is the game of power and to gain power you should have power. Machiavelli stressed only on power but timing for the use of power is also very important and realistically international politics is too much dependant on these factors. In these times only China has that power(economic and military) to pursue its policy completely even if it is confronting U.S. Last week there came the conformation of big deal between China and Iran. China seems to have hit the iron when it is extremely hot. Estimated size of the deal is 400 billion US Dollars which China will invest(pure investment and loans) in Iran through different projects which will provide a breathing space to Iran in the bad economic situation. Iran is facing very difficult situation after the Trump administration slapped sanctions on it and irrespective of contradicting stance of some Europeon nations they couldnot help the Iranian government and they just followed the U.S policy. Covid pandemic has made things much worse
Taking an eagles view to every aspect of thinking!