The common assumption based on years of observation as well as Israeli intelligence is that Hamas and Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen are financed by the Islamic Republic of Iran. But is there more to it than that?
Xi Jinping likes to play peacemaker in this situation but how sincere is he? What role does the Chinese Communist Party play in this conflict? It seems from those who study these things that Xi is saying one thing while doing another.
Besides the fact that China is the number one customer for Iranian oil, it has been observed that many of the weapons supplied from Iran to these various terrorist organizations have Chinese parts and China supplies the "building blocks" of Iranian drones. China is Iran's number one trading partner, so just as Hamas could not do what they do without Iranian support, Iran could not do what they are doing without Chinese support.
It may be as simple as the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Iran hates Israel and the US, so supporting Iran satisfies Chinese animosity toward their mutual foe. If China can aid Iran in destabilizing the Mideast, it helps to defeat American interests in the region.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Great U.S.-China Tech War and Losing South Korea, booklets released by Encounter Books. His previous books are Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World and The Coming Collapse of China, both from Random House.
Chang lived and worked in China and Hong Kong for almost two decades, most recently in Shanghai, as Counsel to the American law firm Paul Weiss and earlier in Hong Kong as Partner in the international law firm Baker & McKenzie.
His writings on China and North Korea have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The National Interest, The American Conservative, Commentary, National Review, Barron's, and The Daily Beast. He is a columnist at Newsweek and writes regularly for The Hill.
He has spoken at Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, Yale, and other universities and at The Brookings Institution, The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, RAND, the American Enterprise Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, and other institutions. He has given briefings at the National Intelligence Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and the Pentagon. He has also spoken before industry and investor groups including Bloomberg, Sanford Bernstein, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia. Chang has appeared before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Chang has appeared on CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, CNBC, MSNBC, PBS, the BBC, and Bloomberg Television. He is a regular co-host and guest on The John Batchelor Show.
Outside the United States he has spoken in Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, The Hague, London, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver.
He served two terms as a trustee of Cornell University.
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