China’s hidden role in the Iran war — The Security Brief

[0:00] The war in Iran has pulled in countries across the globe. [0:03] Today on The Security Brief, we're going to take you inside China's role in this conflict. [0:08] From spy ships carrying out surveillance to weapons sales and the flow of oil, [0:12] China is deeply embedded. [0:15] I'll show you what and where China has deployed its military assets [0:18] and what exactly is going on in the Indo-Pacific with the US attention elsewhere. [0:24] Stay with us. This is The Security Brief. [0:26] Mikey, what is China's main strategic interest in Iran? [0:33] What is at stake if the United States were to impose this blockade on the strait indefinitely? [0:39] Yeah, I think the obvious one, Christian, is China is Iran's biggest trading partner. [0:44] They're the biggest consumer of exported Iranian crude oil, 90% to be precise. [0:50] But their dependence on Iranian oil isn't as immediate as you might think. [0:54] The decision by Washington to lift sanctions on Iranian crude already at sea [0:59] gave China's independent refiners, they call them Chinese teapots. [1:03] It's given them a supply of oil for around two and a half months. [1:06] And we know from tracking data that a Chinese tanker made it out of the strait [1:11] just after the blockade was initiated by the US. [1:14] OK, but at some point, you'd imagine maybe two months down the line, [1:18] if this continued, they're going to start to feel the pinch. [1:20] What might they do about that? [1:24] Well, I think the most important data for us to monitor, [1:27] we're obviously hearing lots of information coming out of these presses [1:30] from HEGSEF and the Joint Chiefs, Dan Kane. [1:33] But sort of from independent verification, I think what we should be looking for, [1:37] especially on The Security Brief, is how many Chinese-owned tankers [1:41] are actually making it out of the strait. [1:43] So coming from the Persian Gulf, Karg Island, for example, [1:45] coming out through the Persian Gulf and through the strait. [1:48] And I think those real-time data trackers, such as Kapler that we're looking at [1:52] and marine traffic, that'll give you the data points that you can rely on [1:57] and sort of indicate whether something else is going on, [2:00] sort of back-channeling, for example. [2:02] You would presume, wouldn't you, that there is some sort of diplomacy [2:04] going on in the background. [2:06] And they've certainly played a role in the peace talks [2:09] that have started in Pakistan. [2:11] What about its military support for Iran? [2:15] What does that look like? [2:16] This is the Liuang-1. [2:20] It's a fascinating vessel. [2:22] It's a 30,000-ton intelligence-gathering vessel [2:25] that has been operating in international waters near the Gulf of Oman, [2:29] and we've been tracking this. [2:30] And its job is basically to monitor and hoover up intelligence [2:33] on the U.S. military response. [2:35] So, for example, carrier strike groups, destroyers, fighter aircraft, [2:40] missile defense systems. [2:41] Christian, they all leave an electronic footprint, [2:45] electronic fingerprints, if you like. [2:47] And that ship will be feeding that electronic data back to Beijing, [2:51] a comprehensive amount of data on U.S. capability [2:55] that China hasn't been able to look at before, [2:58] and giving basically Beijing a real-time picture [3:00] of the entire battlefield situation. [3:03] That ship has the ability to look out at 6,000 kilometers. [3:05] Which is clearly invaluable in future military planning. [3:09] But what about their military support for Iran inside the country? [3:13] Open source intelligence indicates that if they've not, [3:16] if China hasn't sent Iran surface-to-air missile systems already, [3:21] then they're about to. [3:22] And what we're talking about here is specifically what are called manpads. [3:25] Actually, I think we've got a picture of what a manpad looks like. [3:28] That's actually an FN-6. [3:30] It's the Chinese-made surface-to-air missile system. [3:32] But as you can see there, really small, really portable, [3:36] and launched off the shoulder of a soldier. [3:40] Now, what this does is it has what's called an infrared seeker in the nose. [3:44] And what it'll do is it'll look basically at the hot part of the target. [3:48] So, usually the engines. [3:50] Now, with more advanced series, there's also the QW-12. [3:54] What these manpads can do is they can bring down helicopters, drones, cruise missiles, [4:00] and it's got an inbuilt anti-decoi system. [4:02] So, for example, when I was flying over Baghdad, [4:04] we had flares operating on the aircraft. [4:07] And what the flare does is it takes what, effectively, the IR seeker is looking at, [4:12] which is the hot part of the engine, [4:13] and it puts out an equally hot source. [4:16] And it gets the missile to distract it right. [4:18] But these missiles will have a capability that ignores the flare and goes straight for the engine. [4:22] And if you're in the cockpit over Iran, that, right now, would be your single biggest concern. [4:28] Yeah, I mean, these are hard to detect, they're mobile, and they're hard to destroy. [4:33] With a strong countermeasures capability, [4:36] they're precisely the kind of threat that would disrupt any U.S. air activity [4:40] in and around the strait that is there to support the blockade. [4:44] So, there's additional open source intelligence of the U.S. deploying what are called AC-130 gunships. [4:50] I think you've heard of these. [4:52] I mean, I've had first-hand experience working with the AC-130. [4:56] We can see it here on the screen. [4:57] What you can see here is it's in a left-hand turn, [5:00] and all of the ammunition, all of the armament on that aircraft is based down the left-hand side. [5:04] And what we're talking about are 20-millimeter cannons, 40-millimeter cannons, [5:08] and believe it or not, a 105-millimeter Mauser cannon, I think there's a couple of those. [5:13] Wow. [5:13] And it can even fire through cloud using what's known as a synthetic aperture radar. [5:19] So, it's got real sensitive systems on there that allow it to use in really inclement weather conditions. [5:25] But I just want to show the viewers how big a 105-millimeter Hauser is. [5:30] I think we've got a picture here underslung to a Blackhawk. [5:33] I mean, if you look at the size of the troops there, next to that, you know, they can make an impact. [5:37] Right. Here's the paradox at the heart of all this. [5:40] Washington goes to war in the Middle East, the very region that in its own national security strategy says should no longer be the priority. [5:49] While China watches, waits, hoovers up all this information, and quietly extends its reach across the Indo-Pacific region. [5:58] So, is the United States fighting the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time? [6:05] I mean, I think you could definitely say that. [6:07] I mean, from our analysis, there's definitely huge detractions of what the U.S. is doing in Iran at the moment. [6:13] And I think I'd go even far as to say that there might be many in the Pentagon who would probably share that exact viewpoint. [6:21] But let's look at the document itself. [6:24] There's a couple of excerpts that I want to pull out, which I think are basically point to what you're talking about. [6:29] So, concerning Iran, it says there is, quote, less to this problem than headlines might lead one to believe, unquote. [6:37] So, basically, due to the bombing of Iran on Operation Midnight Hammer that we saw back in June 2025, and that was targeting Iran's enrichment nuclear facilities. [6:44] Now, when it comes to the Indo-Pacific, there's another paragraph in here, which I just want to draw the viewers' attention to, which is regarding specifically Taiwan. [6:53] Here we go. Just pulling it up now. [6:55] It says, quote, deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority. [7:02] So, it's almost kind of what this war is showing is it's almost contradicting that national security strategy that came out less than a year ago. [7:09] Right. A military overmatch is, what, military parlance for we have the upper hand. [7:13] Right. [7:13] And that, in your view, has been compromised. [7:15] Yeah. I mean, just for example, the USS Tripoli, the amphibious ready group, the ARG, I mean, we've been reporting on that for weeks. [7:23] It's already embarked and set sail from Okinawa, Okinawa in Japan, where it's based. [7:28] So, you know, the fact that that is already now, and it went via Diego Garcia, that is now within the vicinity of the Gulf of Mo Man, tells us that capability is being pulled from that region. [7:40] Just to be clear for our viewers, what does an amphibious readiness group look like? What does it comprise? [7:45] Yeah, I think we've got footage here. This is the USS Tripoli itself. It's known as a lightning carrier. [7:50] Lightning basically based on the fact that it carries over 20 F-35B fifth-generation fighters that are called the lightning aircraft. [7:56] But in addition to this, it's got two amphibious assault ships, and they're carrying a marine expeditionary unit called the Mew, which includes over 2,000 Marines. [8:06] What about the carrier groups? Because we know the Abraham Lincoln, the Gerald Ford carrier group, they are tasked in Iran. [8:12] Do they still have a carrier group that is forward positioned in the Asia-Pacific? [8:16] Yeah. Open source intelligence does indicate that the USS George Washington carrier is still there. [8:21] That replaced the Ronnie Reagan in 2024, and the George Washington is on permanent deployment, and it's out of Yokosuka in Japan. [8:29] That's still there, according to OSINT. [8:31] Right. So the strategic review that you referred to, it's looking at China's capability, and it points to the Navy particularly, which is rapidly expanding. [8:43] What does that look like? [8:44] Yeah. This is absolutely fascinating when you start digging into this. Let's start by taking a look at Chinese Navy bases down China's eastern seaboard. [8:52] Basically split into three commands, north, east, and southeast sea fleets. In total, around 332 ships. That number could be higher, including three aircraft carriers, 60 subs, and 10,000-plus-ton destroyers. [9:07] Right. And in terms of the major naval bases, what would we be looking at along that coast? [9:13] Yeah. Let's just keep this graphic up for a second. If we look to the southwest of Taiwan, you can see Taiwan down there in the lower center of the shot. [9:21] We pulled some fascinating satellite imagery on Google Earth across the Yulin base on the island of Henin. [9:27] You can see Yulin down in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen there. Let's just take a zoom in. [9:34] We've counted, on the destroyer side, we've counted 12 Chinese war strips on these two jetties. [9:41] Let's just go in a little bit closer. [9:45] And by identifying them, we're looking at basically variants of the PLA's, what's called a Type 52 destroyer, and Type 56 friggers. [9:52] So this is the Type 55. This is the latest destroyer that the PLA have. It's 10,000-plus tons, which actually puts it more in the cruiser category. [10:03] And, you know, when you're talking about the identification, you can see the heli landing pad on the back. [10:08] Heli landing pads are employed basically for anti-submarine warfare, so they'll be called pingers. [10:12] They'll put sonar in the water. They'll listen out for that. [10:15] You can see the gun on the front. That has a certain shape to it. [10:17] And then there's a lot of systems in between the gun and the back. [10:21] That middle bullet point, which says hypersonic missiles. [10:23] Right. So they can deploy, and as of December 2025, there were images appearing online about the YJ-21 hypersonic missile. [10:36] This is really important. We've spoken about hypersonics a lot on this. [10:39] The sort of definition of a hypersonic missile is Mach 5+, which is five times the speed of sound. [10:44] But the YJ-21, it's thought it can travel at Mach 6 in the cruise phase and then Mach 10 in the terminal phase. [10:52] The terminal phase is basically it's gone up, it's cruising at Mach 6, gets its target, and then when it's coming inbound to the target, [10:58] it'll accelerate to maximum velocity, which makes it... [11:01] Mach 10. [11:01] But yeah, which makes it really hard to track and destroy. [11:06] Can we go back to the submarines for a second? What have you picked up on that? [11:09] Yeah, let's... If you can just go back to the regional map, which shows... Yeah, there we go. [11:14] There are two critical submarine facilities. [11:17] One's at Kwingdeo, which you can see right in the north there. [11:20] It's almost a beam, South Korea. [11:22] And the other one's at Hanan. [11:25] If we zoom back in on the satellite image, you'll see submarines in dock at the Yulin base. [11:31] Now, we've just been looking at the Yulin base. [11:32] This is where the destroyers are. [11:34] Then as the map comes out, you can see just down to the right of that, you can see six jetties. [11:39] And if we go in even closer, there are three types of what are called Type 94. [11:44] They're SSBN submarines. [11:47] SSBN stands for Subsurface Ballistic Nuclear, that form part of China's second strike sea-based nuclear deterrent. [11:56] And you can identify them. [11:58] You see that little sort of rectangular hump on the back there. [12:02] That's basically where the ballistic missiles go in, and they go in vertically. [12:07] And you've found us something that looks like a scene from a James Bond movie just to the south of these jetties. [12:15] Yeah, it absolutely does. It's fascinating. [12:17] It was actually our producer, Sam, that cottoned on to this. [12:20] It was a brilliant spot. [12:23] This is a Planet Labs satellite image from August 2020. [12:27] And I just want you to note how many jetties there are there at the moment. [12:30] But if you look... [12:31] Four jetties. [12:32] Four jetties, yeah. [12:32] Four jetties sticking out. [12:33] Hold that thought. Note that. [12:35] What this shows is you can see here what's called a Type 93. [12:39] So this isn't the SSBN. [12:41] A Type 93 is the attack submarines. [12:43] Right. [12:43] So it goes after shipping on the surface and other submarines. [12:47] But that, basically, is at the entrance to a concealed area. [12:51] You know, what this tells you is, obviously, you know, why do they use these concealed bases? [12:56] Well, if we're talking about the second strike nuclear deterrent, it might be for protection. [13:00] But also, it's certainly concealing whatever's going on, whatever's going into that submarine from foreign intelligence. [13:07] Yeah. [13:07] And if we spin that forward and look at this image, now there are six jetties and you get a closer look at the underground base. [13:16] Right. [13:17] So, 50% additional capability on jetties, which shows you that, again, China is rapidly expanding its submarine capability. [13:25] But also, it's giving its submarine capability underground bases like this in order to conceal what they're either doing or testing or protecting. [13:33] So, it shows how far they're advancing. [13:36] But that, I mean, I'm presuming there is still a fairly sizable imbalance, an overmatch, as the Americans refer to it, between the U.S. and China when it comes to the carriers and the carrier strike groups. [13:47] Yeah. [13:47] And it's significant. [13:49] The U.S. have 11 active carriers. [13:52] They've got 10 nuclear-powered Nimitz class and one Gerald Ford class, which we've spoken about a lot on Security Brief. [13:57] The Nimitz displaces around 100,000 tons of volume water and can operate around 75 aircraft. [14:04] And it never has to refuel. [14:05] It's like a traveling air base. [14:06] Yeah. [14:07] Okay. [14:07] And what about the People's Liberation Army? [14:10] The PLA have, up till now, operated two older carriers called the Leoning and Shandong. [14:17] I think we can take a look at that. [14:19] Interestingly, the Leoning originally started as an unfinished Soviet-era carrier from Ukraine that China bought in the late 90s. [14:27] It operates what's called a stow bar system. [14:30] That basically means, the stow bit means short takeoff and arrested recovery. [14:35] So, it will get airborne. [14:35] See that big ramp on the front? [14:37] Yeah. [14:37] Those two. [14:38] So, the aircraft, the J-15T, will get airborne off that and then it will land using the wire. [14:43] You know, like you've seen on Top Gun, they put the hook down and they'll trap it. [14:47] So, that's basically, the Leoning basically was bought partially built from Soviet-era Ukraine. [14:55] The Shandong was then completely built in China. [14:59] And what aircraft would they operate off that kind of carrier? [15:02] Yeah. [15:02] When you look at the type of naval aviation and diversity on the Nimitz, I think that's a good question. [15:07] Because it's literally just one aircraft. [15:09] It's called the J-15T fighter. [15:13] And this is the only one. [15:14] There we go. [15:14] That's a shot of it there. [15:16] And this is the only fighter that up until now, the Chinese have been able to operate off those two carriers. [15:22] And when you contrast that, as I say, with the variety of capability the USS Nimitz or the four-class carriers have, there really is no comparison. [15:29] Although, they are trying to bridge that gap. [15:31] Right. [15:31] They are. [15:32] And I think this is a good point of discussion. [15:34] This is where it gets really interesting. [15:35] So, I want to show you some of the similarities in the way that capability is expanding. [15:39] I think we've got a two-shot here, a comparison. [15:44] There we go. [15:44] On the left, you've got the USS Nimitz. [15:46] That's been operating for decades. [15:48] This is the Fujian, which is basically China's latest aircraft carrier. [15:53] It's currently in trials. [15:55] And it's home of this newest and largest aircraft carrier that China has. [15:59] And how does that one on the right, the Fujian, compare to the Nimitz? [16:03] Right. [16:03] I mean, different in many, many ways. [16:06] You're looking at 100,000 tons for the Nimitz. [16:08] You're looking at 80,000 tons for the Fujian. [16:10] The Nimitz can operate 70-plus aircraft. [16:13] Fujian, probably about 40 to 60. [16:15] It's steam catapults on the Nimitz, more advanced. [16:19] It's called E-MAL, so electromagnetic air launch system on the Fujian. [16:23] And again, as you pointed to earlier, the Nimitz is nuclear-powered. [16:26] The U.S. have been operating carriers for over 100 years, Christian, 100 years. [16:31] The Chinese have been operating carriers for 14 years. [16:34] And so, there is a huge amount to be able to catch up on in that time. [16:39] And obviously, China will only, they will build exactly what they have the know-how to build, [16:44] which isn't going to be everything that the U.S. knows, given the U.S. experience. [16:47] But as we know, the Chinese are very good at copying intellectual property. [16:52] Yeah, they are. [16:52] And, you know, when it comes to developing that additional capability, there's some really interesting capability comparisons. [16:58] So, if we look at the screen, we can see that this is the E-2 Hawkeye. [17:01] That's been operating under an airborne early warning capability off the Nimitz carriers for decades. [17:07] You can see that big radar on the back. [17:09] Now, when you look at the aircraft on the left, the KJ-600, you know, there would definitely be bears on, you know, [17:15] if you could point out the differences to that, because I'm struggling at the moment, even with my aircraft recognition knowledge. [17:20] Let's go on to the F-35. [17:22] So, on the left, you've got the J-35. [17:25] On the right, you've got the F-35. [17:27] That's obviously U.S.-made, the U.S.-made, the U.K.-operated, the F-35B. [17:31] Again, striking similarity. [17:33] Then we can look at, you spoke about the J-15T. [17:36] That's been operating off the carriers for a while. [17:39] But the J-15T, when you look at a cross comparison to the Russian SU-35, again, it's really hard, even with my experience, [17:48] to try and distinguish what the actual differences are. [17:50] I mean, aesthetically, they look the same, but I'm presuming the hardware, the software inside is different. [17:54] Yeah, and that's a really important point to make as well, is that the software and hardware will be different. [17:58] The weapon systems are likely to be very different. [18:00] So, what you see on the outside, albeit similar, doesn't necessarily translate into what you see on the inside. [18:04] Right. So, new capability, really important things that we've been able to show the viewer. [18:09] But still, the comparison, the Chinese are years, if not decades, behind the United States when it comes to naval air power. [18:17] Yeah, and we talk about how quickly Chinese naval power is expanding rapidly, and it is. [18:23] But when it comes to the carriers, you know, it's a really important point to make that, you know, the U.S. have been doing this for 100 years. [18:30] They've got all-weather, day-night capability, deck operations, and that's a really dangerous business. [18:35] And a lot of lessons have been learned just through trial and error and operating that. [18:40] So, while the PLA do have a new carrier, making it three, and they have more aviation to be able to fly off it, again, the U.S. have been doing this a long time. [18:50] And there are a lot of lessons that the Chinese will need to learn before they, which I say will get anywhere close, but I don't think they will. [18:57] All right. United States then holding the upper hand for now, but China, the silent bystander. [19:02] When it comes to carriers. [19:03] When it comes to carriers. [19:04] But China, as I say, the silent bystander in this conflict, and yet maybe they are the biggest strategic winner of all in the conflict. [19:10] Mikey, thank you very much for that. [19:11] It's a really valuable insight into the Chinese capability. [19:15] And just a reminder that all previous episodes of the Security Brief are there on the BBC YouTube website. [19:21] Do take a look at that and subscribe if you haven't already. [19:25] Thank you for watching this week. [19:26] We will be back with another edition very soon. [19:29] This was the Security Brief.