Chinese President Hu Jintao
As in Russia, China's position toward Iran after Ahmadinejad's win is likely to change little. Of the permanent U.N. Security Council members, China has gone easiest on Iran over the past few years. That position reflects the fact that Beijing does big business with Iran. A change in Tehran would have risked seeing those business links severed.
Just as important, Beijing knows that the two countries share a similar governing model, under which the state retains unquestioned authority and accords few if any political rights in exchange for allowing people economic freedom. The people don't care who rules, the logic runs, as long as they're making money. The problem is, in Iran they aren't — owing in part to the government's inept economic policies and in part to years of international sanctions. China therefore has business and ideological interests in seeing the Iranian model survive.