The short-lived war between Israel and Iran has highlighted Iran’s partnerships with other U.S. adversaries, mainly Russia and communist China.
Though no formal alliance exists between Iran, China, Russia, and other aligned states, their political and economic relationships are often seen as a de facto coalition opposed to the U.S.-led West.
In line with this, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) publicly condemned the Israeli and American attacks on Iran’s nuclear and military installations as a violation of Iranian sovereignty.
Cai Shenkun, an overseas Chinese independent commentator, told The Epoch Times that the decision by President Donald Trump to launch a surgical strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities was not intended just to set back its nuclear program, but also to send a message to other governments with anti-U.S. leanings.
In previous months, Trump had earned a reputation as a businessman unwilling to involve the United States in military conflict, Cai said.
“But now it’s clear that these dictators can’t predict his moves, so they’re genuinely afraid of him,” he said. “Trump acts decisively—if he says he’ll strike, he won’t hesitate.”
Cai added that Trump’s willingness to aid Israel raises the possibility that his administration might not stand idle if the Chinese regime attempts to take Taiwan by force.
If Beijing were to “start a war in the Taiwan Strait, the United States could provide Taiwan with decapitation-strike weapons,“ he said, noting that ”CCP officials fear decapitation strikes the most.”
The United States joined the Israel–Iran conflict on June 21 and June 22, about a week after Israel’s first strikes. Trump ordered a long-range airstrike that involved stealth bombers dropping bunker-busting munitions on three major Iranian nuclear sites buried hundreds of feet underground.
While Iran’s partially enriched uranium stockpile remains unaccounted for, the scale of the Israeli and U.S. airstrikes, as well as the shock of Israel’s decapitation operations, has drawn attention to the weaknesses of the Iranian regime.
Wu Jialong, an overseas Chinese commentator who focuses on analysis of economics and current events, told The Epoch Times that Israel’s strikes, plus the unprecedented American use of its heavy bunker-busting bombs to target the Iranian nuclear facilities, located 80 meters underground, has indirectly put the CCP leadership on notice.
The Communist Party rules China out of Zhongnanhai, a side building in Beijing’s Forbidden City imperial palace complex. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which is directly under the command of the CCP and its leader, Xi Jinping, has an underground command bunker at a depth of 60 meters under the Western Hills, a mountainous region at the edge of the Beijing municipal area.
“Trump decided to go ahead and strike Iran, showing the CCP that hiding in a bunker dozens of meters underground won’t protect you from the U.S. military,” Wu noted.
Cai Shenkun said that seeing Iran’s humbling experience at the hands of the much smaller Israel offers a sobering lesson for those in the CCP leadership who advocate an invasion of Taiwan, the democratically governed de facto island nation that the Chinese regime claims as its own.
“Israel pierced through Iran’s so-called defense lines, shattering the web of protections the CCP had built for it,” he said, something that does not bode well for the PLA’s own technical abilities in the event of war.
Cooperation and Dependence
Iran has been under the control of an Islamic theocracy since 1979, when it seized power in a revolution that toppled the pro-Western Shah, driving him and his family, the House of Pahlavi, into exile. Iran has henceforth maintained a hostile relationship with the United States, Israel, and other countries, with its leaders perennially calling for America’s destruction as the “Great Satan.”While Iranian ties with Russia improved after the fall of the Soviet Union—the Islamic authorities termed the Soviet communists the “Lesser Satan”—Tehran has long enjoyed friendly relations and strong economic links with the CCP.
China imports 90 percent of Iran’s oil, according to analysis company Kpler. Oil is a critical resource for Beijing, given that China’s own oilfields are insufficient for meeting the prodigious demands of its vast industrial base and population.
Sino–Iran Cooperation Under Strain
Israeli forces managed to neutralize the entire Iranian air defense network through a combination of conventional airpower and operations conducted by secret agents on the ground. Israel’s intelligence prowess was reportedly instrumental in locating the Iranian military leaders marked for assassination, one of whom was Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
The CCP, which developed nuclear technology and tested China’s first nuclear bomb in the 1960s, provided critical aid to Iran’s nascent nuclear energy project starting in the 1980s, and signed a secret agreement with Tehran in 1990 to help it with nuclear research. Iran also sources much of its military equipment from China, which proved critical during Iran’s 1980–1988 war with Iraq.
But the latest conflict with Israel has led to doubts about the effectiveness of Chinese equipment in Iranian hands, as well as how far China and Russia, which are Iran’s main backers, are able or willing to defend Tehran against the United States.
“Iran is the proxy of both communist China and Russia in the Middle East,” Kuo Yu-jen, deputy director-general for Taiwan’s Institute for National Policy Research, said at a June 18 forum.
He noted that the disastrous performance of Iran’s air defense forces represents an embarrassment for both Beijing and Moscow.
According to a 2017 report by Jane’s Defence Weekly, cited by a Chinese media outlet, Iran’s Negah air defense command and control system, which was active at the time of the Israeli strikes, is based on the Chinese JY-10 system.
The Epoch Times cannot independently verify this claim.
In addition, Iran deployed what appeared to be Chinese-made Shennong 3000/5000 air defense laser systems in late 2024, but these, along with the Negah radar complexes, were easily evaded or defeated by the Israeli forces.
Other air defense systems used by Iran are of Russian design.
Separately, Iran has been a major supplier of military drones for Russian use in its invasion of Ukraine.
