“If the Middle East is unstable, the world will not be at peace,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said Thursday. “If the conflict escalates further, not only will the conflicting parties suffer greater losses, but regional countries will also suffer greatly.”

The Middle East is teetering on the edge of a broad regional war. On June 12, Israel began a sustained bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, regime leadership, and oil and gas depots in an effort to—in the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu— “degrade,

China hosted a summit for African leaders last week while the Trump administration weighed adding two dozen more African countries to its travel ban list.