“For Iran, the Clock is Ticking… they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! This is Trump’s latest warning to Iran! What military action Trump may be contemplating is beyond anyone’s imagination! Is he planning a high intensity multi-nation military operation to open Strait of Hormuz?
Or he wants the control of Kharg Island to decimate Iran’s oil economy? Trump while returning from Beijing said even Chinese President Xi Jinping wants Iran not to have nuclear weapon. However, there is no public statement from President Xi Jinping to that effect.
Moreover, in last 30 years from time to time there are intel reports, open source intel and media reports and various senate and house committee hearings that allege active Chinese involvement in enabling Iran for developing nuclear weapon capability and more so the delivery vehicle cruise and ballistic missiles!
Shailesh Kumar/ Shreya Das, National Defence
New Delhi, 19th May 2026
For Trump Iran not having a nuclear weapon Is fundamental strategic goal. But even IAEA has confirmed that Iran has 440 Kg of 60 per cent enriched Uranium and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said publically that Iran is just weeks away from Nuclear weapon capability.
Now there is extra-ordinary race against time, who gets hold of nuclear fissile material. For Iran it is much easier to grab the Uranium as a vast underground network of tunnels can lead easy access.
If Trump contemplates a high intensity boots on the ground or boots underground Iranian mountains, how is he going achieve without suffering causalities or collateral damage. But the biggest question is why President Trump publically started saying that even Xi Jinping does not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. In this article of a series on Iran’s Nuclear Program, “The Strategist” reveals Chinese collusion with Iran on nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles.
It was the year 1985 that China signed an agreement with Iran that marked the beginning of 12 years of significant nuclear cooperation. Iran was trying to restart its nuclear program, which was suspended after the 1979 revolution but had made little headway. China, still in the early phases of economic reform, was looking for opportunities to gain commercial benefit from its extensive military nuclear capacity. Beijing’s commitment to aid Iran’s nuclear program was also an important element in a broader strengthening of relations between the two countries during this period. In keeping with Supreme Leader Khomeini’s
revolutionary ideology, Iran was hopeful that it could persuade China to join a mutual effort to “remove the so- called cancerous tumors of imperialism in their regions.”
For its part, China shared Iran’s opposition to Western “hegemonism” and emphasized the bond between two ancient civilizations that had suffered from Western oppression. However, as subsequent events were to demonstrate, China’s post-Mao turn to focus on development and economic advancement required a degree of accommodation with
Washington. According to the political scientist John Garver, China ultimately decided to end nuclear assistance to Iran largely to protect its relationship with Washington and avoid international isolation that could jeopardize its economic progress.
Beijing concluded a second agreement for nuclear cooperation with Iran in January 1990. Although the 1985 agreement had been kept secret, China’s Xinhua news agency announced and defended the 1990 accord, describing it as a program to gain economic benefit from the export of nuclear fuel and fuel technology.
However, Beijing provided few specifics about its nuclear assistance to Tehran until November 1991. Responding to a series of press reports alleging that China was aiding a weapons program in Iran, Beijing acknowledged providing a 27 kilowatt thermal miniature neutron source reactor and defended the cooperation as entirely for non-military purposes. China also admitted providing Iran with a small calutron—an electromagnetic isotope separation device.
Reports of the calutron transfer had aroused particular concern because Iraq had used similar technology in its large scale uranium enrichment effort that had been revealed only a few months previously, in the aftermath of the first Gulf War. When the IAEA visited the site in February 1992, they found that the Chinese-provided calutron was too small to be of concern by itself. Nonetheless, the device could be used to gain insight into EMIS technology that could potentially be applied to a larger scale, indigenous uranium enrichment program.
This was the beginning of Chinese support to Iran’s nuclear program. Reported Chinese sales to Iran of uranium hexafluoride feedstock for enriched uranium and indirect sales of HY-2 “Silkworm” antiship cruise missiles symbolize that era of cooperation.
These weapons significantly altered the balance of power in the Persian Gulf. Iran used them during the “Tanker Wars” from 1980- 1988 to strike commercial and U.S.-flagged vessels, establishing a persistent threat to freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.
Throughout the 1990s, U.S. intelligence identified China as a key supplier of nuclear technology and precursor materials to Iran, which included reported plans to assist in building a uranium hexafluoride conversion plant. uranium hexafluoride is the necessary feedstock gas used in gas centrifuges to enrich uranium for both civilian nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.
According to the 1998 Presidential report to Congress on the US-China NCA, the 1985 agreement included “cooperation on uranium geology and exploration, training for Iranian personnel, and supply of several small research reactors and related laboratory facilities.” Most of this activity took place at the Esfahan nuclear center, which was originally established with French assistance during the Shah’s regime.126 In addition to the MNSR, China provided two sub-critical assemblies (each moderated by light water and graphite) and a heavy water-moderated zero-power reactor. According to the IAEA, construction of these facilities began between 1988 and 1990 and was completed between 1992 and 1995. All of these facilities
were declared to the IAEA, safeguarded, and subject to regular inspections. They contain small amounts of highly enriched uranium and heavy water, but are not capable of producing significant quantities of fissile material.
However, following escalating tensions and pressure from the Clinton administration, China agreed to terminate much of its direct nuclear and missile support to Iran in 1997, shifting its role in the region.
China’s growing economic interdependence with its East Asian neighbors, Europe, and the United States has meant that it cannot ignore its major trade and investment partners’ views on Iran. In the aftermath of International Atomic Energy Agency reports of additional advances in Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, in June 2010 China joined the four other permanent members’ consensus to vote for United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929, which imposed a fourth round of UN sanctions on Iran, expanding an existing arms embargo and tightening restrictions on financial and shipping enterprises related to proliferation-sensitive activities.
To cut short, According to IAEA, it is the same Isfahan nuclear complex developed with Chinese technology and support where the majority of Iran’s 440 kg highly enriched Uranium is likely to be in tunnels. IAEA boss Rafael Grossi in an interview to Associated Press told that the International Atomic Energy Agency has satellite images showing the effects of the latest U.S.-Israeli airstrikes against Iran. He believes a large percentage of Iran’s highly enriched uranium “was stored there in June 2025 when the 12-day war broke out, and it has been there ever since”.
The reports explicitly state that while China drastically curtailed direct state-level nuclear cooperation after 1997, Chinese state-owned entities, private firms, and illicit networks have continuously supplied Iran with dual-use technology, materials, and chemical precursors vital to its broader nuclear fuel-cycle and ballistic missile programs. Over the last 20 years, U.S. intelligence assessments transitioned from accusing the Chinese state of transferring nuclear technology to accusing Chinese entities of acting as key suppliers of “dual-use” goods—items that have legitimate civilian applications but are critical for building nuclear enrichment cascades and delivery systems.
A major focal point for U.S. intelligence and Treasury Department sanctions over the last two decades has been the role of Chinese non-state brokers and front companies operating outside of Beijing’s strict regulatory oversight. The most notorious example tracked by U.S. intelligence is Li Fangwei (known as Karl Lee). For over 15 years, Lee and his network of front companies in Dalian, China, bypassed export controls to supply Iran’s defense industry with graphite, specialized metals, and guidance components.
While heavily utilized for Iran’s nuclear-capable ballistic missile programs (like the Shahab series), U.S. reports note that these illicit networks served as the vital economic marketplace making state proliferation possible.
Chinese have shifted their strategy from offering direct support to dual use technology. Chinese entrepreneur Karl Lee or Li Fangwei is the biggest symbol of providing prohitive sanctioned technology to Iranian nuclear and ballistic program.
For over 15 years, Lee and his network of front companies in Dalian, China, bypassed export controls to supply Iran’s defense industry with graphite, specialized metals, and guidance components.
While heavily utilized for Iran’s nuclear-capable ballistic missile programs like the Shahab series, U.S. reports note that these illicit networks served as the vital economic marketplace making state proliferation possible. Despite overwhelming evidences, such non state Chinese actors continue denying their involvement in proliferation.
Where U.S. intelligence does explicitly accuse China of direct, ongoing tech transfers is in the field of ballistic and cruise missiles rather than the nuclear warhead itself. According to reports compiled by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and the CRS, Chinese entities have consistently been “serial proliferators” of telemetry equipment, missile propellants, and precision components to Iran. Because ballistic missiles are the primary delivery mechanism for nuclear payloads, U.S. strategists view this assistance as inherently linked to Iran’s ultimate strategic weapons capability.
It is common belief in US administration that while Pakistan via the A.Q. Khan network in the late 1980s/early 1990s was the primary source that provided Iran with actual nuclear weaponization and centrifuge blueprints, China’s role over the last two decades is characterized not as a direct provider of “the bomb,” but as a highly permissive environment where state and non-state entities sell Iran the sophisticated industrial tech required to build its own nuclear capabilities.
Despite intelligence and media reports, China has consistently denied helping Iran build nuclear weapons and officially supports the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. There have been repeated US intelligence and Congressional allegations over decades that Chinese entities transferred nuclear-related or missile-related technology useful to Iran’s strategic programs, but there is no public proof that China directly transferred an actual nuclear weapon to Iran.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently testified before senate committee on the immediacy of the Iranian nuclear threat, presenting data that alarmed lawmakers regarding foreign tech enablement. Chris Wright warned senators that Iran remains merely “weeks away” from weapons-grade uranium enrichment, explaining that their current 60% enrichment level places them exponentially closer to the 90% threshold required for a warhead than surface numbers suggest.
SASC Chairman Senator Roger Wicker and other lawmakers linked this rapid timeline to what the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission formally categorized as an “Axis of Autocracy.” Committee members argued that China has deliberately allowed Iran to evade energy sanctions, providing Tehran with the massive financial capital to the tune of $31.2 billion in unreported crude sales needed to fund its clandestine centrifuges and covert enrichment networks.
As recent as on May 14, Admiral Brad Cooper, Commander of U.S. Central Command leading operations against Iran testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding the status of the conflict. Senators aggressively questioned him on how deeply foreign technology had penetrated Iran’s military-industrial complex. Adm. Cooper reported that U.S. strikes had successfully destroyed roughly 85% to 90% of Iran’s drone, ballistic missile, and naval industrial infrastructure. Crucially, Cooper asserted that the campaign had severely disrupted the illicit transfer pathways used by foreign entities to funnel specialized parts into the country. The committee’s consensus echoed recent declassified congressional fact that clarified that there is no active intelligence showing Beijing directly gifting complete nuclear weapons blueprints to Tehran.
Senators specifically highlighted recent intelligence showing Iranian state-owned vessels departing Chinese ports like Gaolan Port loaded with sodium perchlorate—a vital chemical precursor used to fuel solid-propellant, nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.
Lawmakers also raised concerns over Beijing granting Iran military-grade access to its BeiDou satellite navigation system, directly improving the precision of systems meant to carry future payloads.
This intense pressure from the Senate Armed Services Committee heavily influenced President Trump’s recent diplomatic strategy. Upon concluding his high-stakes bilateral summit in Beijing, Trump publicly stated that he used the threat of renewed U.S. military action (Operation Sledgehammer) to extract a firm commitment from Chinese President Xi Jinping. According to Trump, Xi “strongly pledged” that China would not provide military equipment to aid Iran and expressed a shared interest in seeing the Strait of Hormuz reopened.
Chinese have been assisting Iran, an Iran not ready to give up its nuclear ambitions by providing not only logistics, material but also crucial intelligence. The People’s Liberation Army Navy has positioned its advanced signals intelligence vessel, the Liaowang-1, in the Gulf of Oman, close to the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz. Accompanied by escorting Type 055 and Type 052D destroyers, the Liaowang-1 provides Beijing with detailed insights into shipping transiting the Strait of Hormuz. This narrow chokepoint carries roughly one-fifth of global oil shipments daily, rendering it a focal point for geopolitical observation amid persistent regional tensions involving United States, Israeli, and Iranian forces.
Intelligence tracking and maritime data reveal that a massive, coordinated effort is underway to resupply Iran. To bypass the severe U.S. naval blockade enforced under Operation Epic Fury, a multi-pronged logistics operation has been activated—utilizing both highly permissive sea routes approved by Tehran and an emergency overland “land bridge” opened by Pakistan.
Recent intelligence from the U.S. Senate, Congressional Research Service, and open-source satellite trackers points to three specific large-scale consignments and pathways:
Due to the U.S. Navy heavily squeezing Iranian ports, Pakistan has emerged as a crucial geopolitical pivot. Islamabad, a close ally of officially enacted the Transit of Goods through Territory of Pakistan Order 2026, opening six land transit routes through Balochistan to the Iranian border.
This allows third-country cargo primarily the Chinese shipments that land at Pakistani ports—Karachi, Port Qasim, and Gwadar—to be moved immediately by road into Iran via the Gabd and Taftan border crossings.
This order resulted in over 3,000 stranded shipping containers at Karachi port mobilized instantly. The shortest route, the Gwadar-Gabd corridor, slashed transport times to the Iranian border down to just 2 to 3 hours, effectively creating an un-interceptable pipeline out of reach of U.S. warships.
On the maritime front, Beijing and Tehran have shifted from clandestine smuggling to overt, highly coordinated defiance of the U.S. blockade. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy confirmed that a convoy of at least 30 Chinese vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz simultaneously.
The “Iranian Protocol”: This massive movement was pre-approved via direct, high-level diplomatic coordination between Beijing and Tehran. It was explicitly designed by Iran to assert its sovereign “conditional access” protocol over the waterway, demonstrating that while Western ships are blocked or heavily delayed, Chinese mega-vessels enjoy privileged, unhindered transit.
Declassified U.S. intelligence reports indicated that Beijing has been preparing massive transfers of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to help Iran restock its depleted armaments.
Congressional reports confirmed that a Chinese company, Earth Eye Co., built, launched, and delivered in-orbit control of the TEE-01B commercial reconnaissance satellite directly to Iran. This gives Tehran independent, high-resolution imagery intelligence to monitor U.S. fleet positions and troop movements in real-time, completely undermining the blockade’s element of surprise.
Iran’s supply lines have successfully adapted. While the U.S. Navy can monitor and harass isolated “Ghost Fleet” tankers in open waters, it cannot easily stop a 30-ship convoy sailing under a Chinese diplomatic shield, nor can it strike container trucks moving through Pakistan’s sovereign territory without triggering a massive, multi-nation regional escalation. Chinese collusion with Iran continues in back channel how hard Chinese Communist Party try to put a different neutral public face. It is upto Trump Administration to realize why US military’s efforts not culminating in decisive victory.
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