Is Trump Covering for Xi as China Supplies Weapons to Iran?

The Chinese regime is determined to kill Americans, and the Trump administration is not stopping it. According to Reuters, China plans to sell Iran up to 400 shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles, commonly known as MANPADs. On April 3, Iran took down a U.S. Air Force F-15E, apparently using a Chinese MANPAD. Pictured: A Chinese FN-16 MANPAD launcher. (Photo by Mike1979 Russia/Wikimedia Commons)

"I am confident that within the Chinese system, if there are private sector actors, and we gave the Chinese the name of the company we believed may be dealing with the Iranians, that I am confident the Chinese leadership will make sure that private sector actors do not transact in those kind of weapons," Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent told Edward Lawrence of Fox Business on July 30.

Bessent was reacting to a July 28 Reuters report that a "Chinese supplier," acting through a Hong Kong intermediary, was planning to sell Iran up to 400 shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles, commonly known as MANPADs (man-portable air-defense systems).

The Chinese regime has not been taking Bessent seriously. In June, Treasury imposed sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong individuals and companies facilitating the transfer of weapons, including MANPADs, to Iran.

China's transfers of MANPADs are not the work of rogues. The Communist Party runs a near-total surveillance state, and no enterprise, state-owned or private, could sell weapons to Iran — or do anything else for that matter — without the regime knowing about it.

Privately owned companies in China do not operate independently of the Party, especially when their actions can affect relations with friends such as Iran and enemies such as the United States.

"Bessent implied that a 'private sector actor,' without the knowledge of China's leadership, was sending the weapons," Charles Burton of the Sinopsis think tank told Gatestone. "There is no commercial venture in China that does not have a Communist Party branch controlling the board of directors. It is inconceivable that any weapons exports come out of China except as directed by China's central authorities."

"The whole notion of a 'private sector' in China is fanciful and serves only to reinforce one of Beijing's most prized propaganda tools," Roger Robinson, former chairman of the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, said to this publication. "This MANPAD case illustrates the benefits for the CCP of being able to distance itself from egregious national security behavior that it conceives and fully intends to implement."

China's regime has sold more than MANPADs to Iran. The CM-302 missiles Iran fired at the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group during the ongoing war — President Donald Trump said Iran fired 101 of them — were Chinese. There are images of Chinese military transports, during the war, landing in Iran after turning off their transponders.

Moreover, after the fighting started on February 28, Iran, according to Financial Times reporting, had access to the satellite of a private Chinese company — the TEE-01B of Earth Eye Co. — and was using the imagery to target U.S. military assets in the region. Almost certainly, imagery from this asset resulted in the March 1 strike on Kuwait that killed six American servicemembers.

China has also allowed the Aerospace Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to use the commercial ground stations of Emposat, a Chinese company.

Trump, speaking from the Oval Office the day after the Reuters report, said he would be "disappointed" if China were to supply weapons to Iran. He also said Xi had repeatedly assured him that China would not do so.

So far, China's MANPADs have not killed Americans during the war. On April 3, however, Iranian fire took down a U.S. Air Force F-15E over southwestern Iran. It appears the Iranians used a Chinese MANPAD.

The fact remains that the Chinese regime is determined to kill Americans, and the Trump administration is not stopping it. Many believe that Trump is issuing warnings to China in private, but so far the president has not shown the political will to do anything effective. The flow of Chinese weapons is, from all accounts, continuing.

"The greatest immorality," said Ronald Reagan in a 60 Minutes interview with Mike Wallace, "is for a government to ask its young men to fight and die for their country if it isn't a cause that that country is willing to win."

Gordon G. Chang is the author of Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.