Mario Nawfal@MarioNawfal
🇨🇳🇮🇱🇮🇷 China didn’t pick a side in the Iran war, it picked both.
The magnets inside Israel’s Arrow interceptors are Chinese-processed rare earths, while the navigation system guiding Iran’s Fattah-2 missiles is also from China.
According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, nearly every major U.S-aligned interceptor system, Patriot, THAAD, Arrow, David’s Sling, relies on Chinese rare earth processing for the magnets that make guidance, steering, and targeting possible.
No magnets, no interception, and right now, there is no backup plan.
China controls roughly 90% of the rare earth supply chain. The U.S imports 100% of its finished magnets. To match that with domestic production will take a decade, minimum.
Iran’s arsenal, Fattah-2, Emad, Kheibar Shekan, even Shahed drones, leans heavily on Chinese inputs: satellite navigation via BeiDou, propellants, electronics, and components. Add Russian and Chinese satellite imagery, and you get targeting precision layered on top of supply dependence.
Why this matters: Both sides are burning through their stockpiles.
Israel has already expended a significant share of its Arrow and David’s Sling interceptors. Iran is launching barrages that are equally finite, especially as production sites get hit with airstrikes.
And every launch, defensive or offensive, tightens their dependency on China.
