Even as Donald Trump's war roils global energy markets and runs down stocks of U.S. air-defense weapons, the president's relentless assault on the Iranian regime has yielded at least one perhaps accidental achievement: It's undermining the reputation of America's chief global rival. China is proving to be an unreliable friend to Iran in this moment of crisis, and any authoritarian regime that's counting on Beijing as its backstop should think again. Beijing has grand plans to undermine American power by joining forces with other authoritarian states, including Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and North Korea. Until recently, this scheme appeared to be working. Beijing's ties with Iran and Russia had blunted America's efforts to economically isolate Tehran and Moscow, and granted China a ready supply of cheap energy and some well-located partners. At a meeting last year with Venezuela's then-president, Nicolas Maduro, Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed the two countries as 'good partners of...
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