US intelligence indicates China preparing weapons shipment to Iran, CNN reports

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Wisdom_Peak4781@reddit

China has positive relations with Iran and they have money. Why wouldn't they be selling them weapons as they are in the middle of war? Duh.

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China's policy is really more to try to maintain positive relations with everyone. That means they also want positive relations with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait. Countries that supply a lot of their oil, and the likely destination for these weapons when they get fired. This is a bit of a gamble, and partially why they haven't been more forthcoming with the Iranians to date.

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ml5c0u5lu@reddit

Nah it’s belt and road initiative and getting countries to sign bad deals where they become indebted to China.

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notjustsome-all@reddit

So China is the new World Bank?

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Effective-Ebb-2805@reddit

Which can't possibly be worse than being indebted to the corporations that own American foreign policy.

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GeorgeRRZimmerman@reddit

As a Recent American, this seems like a really weird policy. For what reason would a country want to have good relationships with everyone?

What is China gonna do next - start putting their bases in every country and start helping them build out local infrastructure using Chinese contractors? Next thing you're going to tell me is that they want the Yuan to be the world's reserve currency.

Why would any country want to do that globally and also forever?

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Aegongrey@reddit

Are you supposing that China is positioning to be the new America?

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biobennett@reddit

Ending the petrodollar may be more helpful for them than the golf states in general

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StarWars_and_SNL@reddit

And surely this isn’t the first time they’ve done this.

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Aegongrey@reddit

Compared to western aggression and their corrupt weapons programs, China is maintaining a vastly higher ground. Yugoslavia demonstrates the western barbarism and abuse of power very well. The East is playing chess with tyrants who rely on fear and violence, so they are right to hold onto principled foreign policy actions. They are creating a world they want to be a part of, not a world they have monopolized for exploitative machinations. It is expected that people from the West will project their own experiences onto the East, but as with any psychological projection, it is rooted within the paradigm within which they exist - in other words, it is hard for westerners to imagine a vastly different paradigm, let alone recognize it when it starts to challenge their own inborn doctrines of supremacy.

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Potential4752@reddit

Because they also have a relationship with the US and we have more money? I don’t think they would be doing this had we not started some trade war nonsense earlier.

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Aegongrey@reddit

And I’m not so sure our most recent acts of aggression are solely to blame - BRICS arose from decades of abuse and exploitation based on western supremacy and entitlement.

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Aegongrey@reddit

We have fiat money…and that “because we say so” has been eroded by a significant degree…for all the reasons.

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Dilated_Auntie6970@reddit

And they haven't sanctioned them / been sanctioned

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SpaceMonkey_321@reddit

2 can play at 'might is right' at this point

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Even-Stranger5764@reddit

It's the Russia/Ukraine dynamic all over again

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Ashamed-Status-9668@reddit

Oh god but we are Russia. :(

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Independent-Bug-9352@reddit

Yeah but you see.

I don't trust anyone in US Intelligence under a Republican administration, and especially this particular one who was literally reported caught trying to draft a legal memo to justify Federal take-over of elections by trying to point the finger on China for Trump's election loss.

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Professional-Art8449@reddit

This exactly.

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NeedleworkerNo3429@reddit

Good false flag here we go

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ytman@reddit

China is supporting a recently assaulted nation.

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BioExtract@reddit

Theyre just defensive weapons!!!

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HomoExtinctisus@reddit

They are now regardless.

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Aegongrey@reddit

When confronting the Epstein factions, yes…they are treacherous.

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randylush@reddit

Curious, should this dissuade someone from leisurely travel to China in the near future?

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pattydickens@reddit

Iran has every right to defend itself according to the very same logic Israel uses to bomb the shit out of half the region. This war was not started by Iran.

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futilehabit@reddit

Iran has that right without needing to resort to batshit Israeli propoganda

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DoesNotArgueOnline@reddit

not propaganda though

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No_Direction6688@reddit

Can anyone really trust anything that CNN reports?

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Affectionate-Act6127@reddit

Once upon a time long ago, in a land far far far away, in the year 2022 in a place called Ukraine…..

There was an unprovoked invasion of said Ukraine. Its allies, including the United States, decided that a plan supply arms to the country in perpetuity was the best plan to counter this aggression and force the invader to the negotiating table.

It wasn’t until years later that a new leader came along and ended the war in 24 hours.

China should be able to see that this is clearly a losing strategy and that they will be defeated bigly.

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LeninsMommy@reddit

Nice 🇨🇳🥳

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Vdasun-8412@reddit

Que clase de americano celebra que otro pais le escupa en la cara..

Oh espera defendes la USSR..

Payaso

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splycedaddy@reddit

US government wants you to believe Iran has no friends.

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Vdasun-8412@reddit

Porque china continental salio a dar la cara por venezuela cierto?

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Mikeynphoto2009@reddit

The supply chain picture is worse than the headline. This isn't just China. Iran contracted 500 Verba MANPADS launchers and 2,500 missiles from Russia in a deal signed December 2025. If both pipelines are active, Russia and China are both supplying the same weapon class to the same belligerent.

Meanwhile 24 MQ-9 Reapers down in 42 days. The US just sent two destroyers through Hormuz for the first time since the war started but the insurance blockade means commercial shipping hasn't moved. Estimates range from 800 to 2,000 vessels still stranded depending on who's counting.

I cover the daily energy and conflict picture at brief.gizmet.dev/latest if you want the full breakdown.

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Many_Size_1515@reddit

So like how do they get the weapons to Iran, and can we like stop them or something?

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dust-ranger@reddit

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Perfect_Swing_6158@reddit (OP)

Now that’s strange. My 12 year old account got perma ban for speaking some truth on this matter about China so unfortunately there is more intel not allowed to be said here but something is definitely up.

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Appropriate-Claim385@reddit

The orange clown threatened to slap a 50% tariff on any country selling arms to Iran. China don't care.

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Wisdom_Peak4781@reddit

You can't have a consumer based economy and tariff the production capital of the world. Anyone with above room temperature IQ knows that isn't sustainable. Plus, China owns either the most or 2nd most US debt. They can just crash the economy selling off 800 billion in treasury bonds if they want to.

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notabee@reddit

Not any more. China has been winding down that debt for years. They're buying up gold like mad as alternative bank reserves. Economists used to think in the past several years that Japan and the UK were the 1st and 2nd largest debt holders, but apparently someone did some digging and the largest holder of U.S. treasuries by far is hedge funds operating in tax havens like the Cayman Islands. Even our loyalest vassals can no longer bear the largest burden of our debt! We're sitting on a debt powder keg and we're destroying all of the soft power that helped convince the world to sustain that system. The only way out appears to be devaluing the dollar eventually (i.e. major money printing) to devalue the debt.

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smuckersbrah@reddit

It's not about sustainability, trump doesn't care two fucks about that. It's leverage that he can use to make more money with some added extras like controlling the narrative.

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Aegongrey@reddit

Which significantly imperils further the American community’s ability to sustain itself…uff

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finnishinsider@reddit

Two dolls. Raggedy ann or Andy. The stencils will be on your flour sacks. Make sure to say thank you.

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Aegongrey@reddit

Is that a depression era reference??

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DontRememberOldPass@reddit

People don’t realize China also owns 37 of the 100 largest shipping ports outside of china.

They can impose a naval blockade of 40-60% of all goods being imported into the US without moving a single military ship. They just have to put out the word that Chinese owned ports and vessels don’t move US bound containers.

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alkbch@reddit

That would crash their economy too…

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Relevant-Doctor187@reddit

Yeah let’s slap tariffs on Americans to punish China.

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here-i-am-now@reddit

His tariffs were the largest tax hike in history on the American people

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Nuzzleface@reddit

Art of the Deal, baby!

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iamthelee@reddit

Trump has threaten to do and then immediately backed down from a lot of things. It's hard to take this "strong man" seriously.

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future_sommelier@reddit

Threatening to punish your own people as a threat to the world is some straight up dictator shit.

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Mrchrisham@reddit

Doesn’t matter to China, the people pay the tariffs not the importers. Now that supreme court has ruled it unconstitutional we won’t be getting our money back. It will go to the corporatists

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yellowjackethokie@reddit

China held the line long enough to watch the Supreme Court of the United States strike down Donal Trump's Liberation Day tariffs as illegal. Neither China, nor any other country, is intimidated by the threat of tariffs, anymore.

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Unique_Adeptness4413@reddit

Trump and vance have both voiced the opinion that it is illegal for the judiciary to check them, and they're firing dozens of generals in the military. I think the only thing certain for now is uncertainty.

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aipac_hemoroid@reddit

TACO time

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RelaxPrime@reddit

US intelligence is an oxymoron these days.

Pure propaganda.

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Beneficial_Map6129@reddit

Why did we invade Iran in the first place? Venezuela?

Oil.

Did we strike first?

Think about this war.

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puntmasterofthefells@reddit

Because we're 15R43L's bitch now, 100%

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LoveBulge@reddit

Iran needs to spend all that yuan somewhere.

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TeamOverload@reddit

“Weapons shipments” then the entire article only mentions air defense systems. You know to protect their country that the orange pedo felon man decided to attack. But weapons shipments sure make it sound worse and scarier!

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SlaterVBenedict@reddit

I mean fuck this administration and their entire propaganda apparatus whose sole job it is to lie to us, but also fuck the Chinese government who also sucks donkey dick and would absolutely sell whatever they fuckin felt like to Iran, If they found if valuable to do so.

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escapefromburlington@reddit

China isnt imperialist, US is. Not a both sides are bad situation

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SlaterVBenedict@reddit

Lol this statement is so fucking stupid. I invite you to take a look at both Hong Kong and Taiwan in just recent memory.

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escapefromburlington@reddit

China has 2 foreign military bases lol. Hong Kong and Taiwan were bases for Western imperialists whose abuse of Asia is legendary. My god you western chauvinists are ridiculous. If China does practice imperialism, it’s an order of magnitude less harmful than the West’s version.

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SlaterVBenedict@reddit

Nah, this is fucking nonsense buddy.

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Sad_Math5598@reddit

China is absolutely imperialist. Tibet, their treatment of Uyghur Muslims, Taiwan. China just dresses up in their imperialism in flowery language like “reunification”.

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escapefromburlington@reddit

Nah, they only have 2 foreign military bases. China’s imperialism, if it even exists, is orders of magnitude less harmful than the United State’s version of it. Taiwan was spawned by fascist traitors and stooges of Western imperialists. The equivalent in terms of USian politics is if the traitorous South never rejoined the union and was take over by folks serving Putin’s interests.

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Big_Fortune_4574@reddit

Their shoulder fired surface to air missiles. And I assume they are much more advanced than what Iran has been using, since there’d be no reason to send them otherwise (Iran has a shit load of MANPADs already). They are absolutely weapons

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here-i-am-now@reddit

Those are weapons for defense. Iran hasn’t invaded anyone. The only use is shooting down airborne targets in their airspace.

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Big_Fortune_4574@reddit

Yeah, and?

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Bob4Not@reddit

So? The US has provided weapons to Iran in the past

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HungryAddition1@reddit

You mean Trump tried to do this a couple of months ago? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/6/trump-says-us-armed-iranian-dissidents-via-kurds-kurdish-groups-deny-claim

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Majestic-Attitude615@reddit

also lifted oil sanctions on Iran a few week ago - while we were currently fighting them (!)- that's a new one(?) - trying to depose a regime while also allowing them to acquire more funds - which....according to this..... they are apparently spending on more weapons from China - incoherent logic(!)

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HungryAddition1@reddit

I mean, everything was fine until we attacked them. This whole war has been backfire after backfire. The removed sanctions on Russian oil too, to alleviate the sticker shock at the pump, from the closure of the strait of Hormuz. He's basically handed Russia, Iran and China a huge boost. I wonder how much he will end up spending, to try and reopen the strait, and then to rebuild Iran and the allies in the golf that got hit because of that poor calculation to attack them for no absolute reason.

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Aegongrey@reddit

I wouldn’t quite agree that everything was fine - western aggression has been passive and subtle for many decades in preparation for global dominance - a project for the new American century details that explicitly. They took that playbook and began preparing for our inevitable strike. Most Americans cannot see how the West has been quietly positioning itself for this moment for many decades - Ukraine is the most obvious act of aggression in 2014 - but alas, Iran and China have been attending to the subtle western movements and took these movements seriously. Just because Americans have been lulled by the corporate song does not mean the East is buying it. America and the West is built on faulty philosophical virtue, which is why it is impotent to understand that Iranian leaders have written books on our philosophical foundations and their abject flaws.

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Trumpton2023@reddit

You need to ask Ollie. Still, on the brightside, he married the whistle blower last year (his ex secretary/assistant)

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4Yk9gop@reddit

The U.S. provided weapons and military resources to both Iraq and Iran in the 80s. The list of countries in the Middle East the U.S. has not armed is... honestly not sure if there are any at this point.

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JMurdock77@reddit

Saint Reagan, no less. Who’d have thunk it?

Also this might come as a surprise, but Reagan managed to reel Israel in with a single phone call when their atrocities in Lebanon went too far for him to ignore. Sadly, American presidents seem to have entirely forgotten how to do that.

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existing_for_fun@reddit

Iran receives weapons from a few places. They include China, Russia, and NK as the top 3 providers.

Getting a shipment from China isn't a new thing.

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WaffleHouseGladiator@reddit

Sure, but the powers that be might latch onto this and do pull some boneheaded nonsense because it's news to them. There are a lot of really stupid, bullish people in positions of power.

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outoftheshowerahri@reddit

You’re both so close to understanding why this conflict is happening

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SnooBeans4214@reddit

I’m not defending us. I’m just saying this isn’t a surprise to anyone running our country.

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Aegongrey@reddit

Not a surprise maybe, but those running our country will, like a child lacking theory of mind, project their own reasoning onto eastern actions instead of evaluating the fault in their own actions.

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SnooBeans4214@reddit

If we know about it. Our intelligence agencies have known about it for way before us.

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dontgoatsemebro@reddit

Where do they get their Tomohawks from?

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dufutur@reddit

FN-6 I guess, similar to Stinger.

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Moral-Relativity@reddit

Is it me or there seems to be far more rumors about China selling weapons to Iran than confirmed facts? American government’s own “fact sheet” updated on 3/16 has this to say:

China was a major supplier of conventional weapons to Iran in the 1980s but largely stopped transfers in 2015 after UN Security Council Resolution 2231 increased international scrutiny of such transfers.[9]In recent years, security cooperation has shifted toward dual-use technology sales and transfers of defense-related technologies

Then of course this US intelligence leak comes out. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have delivered the weapons before all the scrutiny of the world?

It’s also a little known fact that China sold a lot of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, who has the most to fear from Iran. If the war widens we might see Saudis attacking Iran with Chinese ballistic missiles.

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taxed2deathDNR@reddit

I love how our two biggest “adversaries” are helping the other side in our war of choice.

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here-i-am-now@reddit

Our biggest adversary sits in the White House.

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taxed2deathDNR@reddit

ok, fair enough, our external adversaries.

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Effective-Ebb-2805@reddit

Don't worry about that... Iran is naturally and rightfully trying to defend itself from American and Israeli aggression.Worry about the weapons shipments to Israel that you haven't heard about, but are actively killing children in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. These are the weapons shipments that eventually and inevitably result in days like September 11 and October 7.

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normallyidont@reddit

Iran has a right to defend itself.

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kingcakeaholic@reddit

China has almost limitless manufacturing capacity and will supply Iran forever.

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binsandbuckets@reddit

Well.. over the past several days there has been endless stream of Boeing globemasters transporting something from the US to Israel all hours of the day and night. I would venture to say that weapons are getting transported to Israel.. but what do I know.

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Iran, after all, has the right to defend itself.