Don Gulling

"How China Is Quietly Helping an Isolated Iran Survive" @WSJ wsj.com/world/how-chin… China is Iran's most important economic partner. Roughly 90% of Iran's 1.6 million barrels a day of crude oil exports are sold to China, providing Tehran with the equivalent of tens of billions of dollars of revenue each year. Iran manages a complex, clandestine shadow-banking network globally that is facilitated by China, U.S. officials allege. China's teapot refiners pay for Iranian oil in the Chinese currency, the yuan, and Tehran uses some of the money to buy products in China that are then shipped to Iran. According to U.S. officials, Chinese companies continued, however, to be a critical supplier of goods with potential military applications, such as motors that have been used in Iran's Shahed drones, chemicals for rocket fuels and electronics for an array of weapons. China-based commercial satellite firms have participated in business exchanges with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Pentagon said in December. Last year, two ships linked to an Iranian state company left China loaded with 1,000 tons of a material that could be used to make a main ingredient for a solid propellant of some 260 midrange missiles, The Wall Street Journal has reported. In mid-2025, Iran ordered thousands of tons of missile fuel ingredients from China, according to Journal reporting. The Chinese government has said it is unaware of specific orders but maintains strict control on so-called dual-use items that have both civilian and military applications.