Torbjørn Færøvik: Tehran Under Watch - China’s Surveillance Grip on Iran

Tehran is no longer what it once was, say travelers who have recently returned from Iran. Under normal circumstances, the Iranian capital is a bustling metropolis. But this spring, it seems as though people are tiptoeing around street corners, for no one knows what the day—or tomorrow—may bring. 

When Donald Trump went to war with Iran, he urged the country’s 93 million inhabitants to rise up. Instead, they have remained quiet. The reasons may be many. In wartime, most people have enough to do simply managing their daily lives. Moreover, they are painfully aware that the price of raising a fist can be extremely high—in the worst case, death.

China, too, is helping to keep the Iranians in check. In Tehran and other cities, they are monitored by Chinese-made cameras from morning till night. Equipped with facial recognition, the cameras can identify anyone who steps out of line.

China says its economy is accelerating despite Iran war turmoil – for now

Strong exports of electrical and mechanical products supercharged China’s economy in the first three months of the year, with growth exceeding analysts’ expectations even as the Iran war upended global trade and energy markets.

But officials warned of “volatile” external conditions ahead, as the conflict in the Middle East weakens global demand and threatens China’s export reliant economy.

On Thursday, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported a 5.0% increase in Gross Domestic Product from the same period last year. It marked an acceleration from the 4.5% growth reported in the final quarter of last year. The NBS hailed the “solid start,” while cautioning against domestic and international headwinds.

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China has so far weathered the historic oil crisis. But as Xi prepares to meet Trump, costs are starting to grow

China, the world’s largest importer of energy, has so far weathered the global energy shock brought on by war in the Gulf well compared with some of its Asian neighbors. But as global fuel markets remain volatile amid an uneasy US-Iran ceasefire and a new American military blockade that threatens Iranian exports, the stakes of the conflict are only rising for Beijing.

One reason? As the main importer of Iranian oil, China is the country that stands to be the most impacted by US moves impacting its flow – both last month when the White House removed certain US sanctions on Iranian barrels, and now, as the US military launches a blockade of Iranian ports.

These moves may not lead to immediate shortages in China, which has been well prepared for an energy shock.

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China raises pressure on underground Catholics to join official church, Human Rights Watch finds

Chinese authorities are increasing pressure on underground Catholic communities to join the state-controlled official church while tightening surveillance and travel restrictions on all of China’s estimated 12 million Catholics, a rights group said Wednesday.

The detailed report from Human Rights Watch said the heightened pressure was part of a decade-old campaign to ensure that religious denominations and independent churches are loyal to the officially atheist Communist Party, a claim the Chinese government rejected, saying the group is “consistently biased against China.”

China’s Catholics have been divided between an official, state-controlled church that didn’t recognize papal authority and an underground church that remained loyal to Rome through decades of persecution.

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China's satellite boost gives Iran an US targeting edge

Iran’s reported use of a Chinese-built satellite, combined with alleged Russian intelligence support, signals a shift toward a new model of warfare in which commercially enabled space assets reshape how US forces are tracked and targeted.

Reuters reported that Iran covertly obtained a Chinese-made TEE-01B spy satellite to improve its capacity to observe and potentially target US military bases throughout the Middle East. The report was based on information from the Financial Times (FT), which referenced alleged leaked Iranian military documents.

Linking possible ties between Chinese commercial satellite companies and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the US Department of Defense’s (DoD) 2025 China Military Power Report states that “as of August 2024, China-based commercial satellite companies participated in business with the IRGC,” but does not go into detail about the depth of such transactions.

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Chinese Embassy in Japan says authorities fail to act on threats

The Chinese Embassy in Japan said Thursday it has received multiple threats and accused Japanese authorities of failing to take effective measures despite its repeated reporting to police, as tensions between the two sides rise.

Shi Yong, acting Chinese ambassador to Japan, said the embassy on March 5 received a letter from a group claiming to comprise former police and military members and threatening attacks on China’s diplomatic missions in Japan and “wiping out all Chinese” in the country.

The embassy said on X that it immediately reported to Japanese police and criticized they did not take the matter seriously, implement effective steps or establish the facts. Japan’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment.

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Coal Is Rising in China's Clean Energy Transition

China’s energy transition is entering a more complex phase than commonly assumed. While the country is rapidly scaling up renewable energy – China now leads the world in both investment and deployment – coal production and coal power investment are also increasing.

This contradiction reflects a deeper structural reality: China is not moving from coal to renewables in a linear transition. Instead, it is attempting to expand both simultaneously, balancing decarbonization goals with rising electricity demand and system reliability constraints. China’s renewable expansion has reached unprecedented levels. In 2024, China’s clean energy investment exceeded $625 billion, nearly double the level in 2015.

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China’s Xi warns against ‘world’s retrogression to the law of the jungle’ in meeting with Spain’s PM

The leaders of China and Spain on Tuesday pledged to work to safeguard multilateralism at a time of conflicts including the war in Iran, with Chinese President Xi Jinping saying the countries should “oppose the world’s retrogression to the law of the jungle.”

Xi said they should “jointly safeguard genuine multilateralism,” strengthen communication and cooperate closely, during a reception for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez at the Great Hall of the People. Sánchez agreed and said China and Spain “can contribute to finding solutions to the various trade tensions that exist, to the geopolitical difficulties and complexities of today’s world, to the wars, to the environmental and social challenges that afflict the world.”

Sánchez is on his fourth trip in just over three years to the world’s second-largest economy. Spain is looking to strengthen political and commercial ties. The visit comes as Sánchez faces a strained relationship with the U.S. over his opposition to the war in Iran.

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Vietnam’s new leader meets China’s Xi on his first overseas trip

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for prioritizing infrastructure connectivity with Vietnam and more cooperation on emerging fields like artificial intelligence and semiconductors during a meeting Wednesday with Vietnam’s newly elected president, the state broadcaster said.

Vietnamese President To Lam’s four-day trip to China, which began on Tuesday, is his first overseas trip since he was elected last week. That signaled Lam’s foreign policy priorities and stronger ties between the two Communist nations.  Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported that Xi said defending the socialist system and the Communist Party’s ruling position is the greatest common strategic interest between the two parties during their meeting.

He also urged both sides to firmly uphold confidence in their paths and systems and persist in reform without changing direction, the report said.

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The Iran war is China’s global payments debut

It has been China’s long-held dream to dethrone King Dollar. Beijing got its first break after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and Russian lenders were deleted overnight from the system that moves the world’s money. However, back in 2022, the yuan was nowhere close to confronting the hegemon. It would take four more years of preparation — and another war — to make it a contender.

I said in early February that those looking for evidence of the challenge to the US currency in payment flows were searching in the wrong place and that for years to come, de-dollarization would remain hidden in alterations to financial infrastructure.

That was before the US-Israeli war on Iran. A lot has changed in the past six weeks. China is the largest buyer of Iran’s seaborne oil.

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Lessons for region from Iran crisis

Taipei Times: Beware building bridges to China

China on Sunday last week raised the issue of building a bridge connecting Xiamen, China, with Kinmen County, alongside proposals for gas, water and electricity links between the two areas.

“The bridge would be a positive development if China has the benefit of the people in mind and acknowledges Taiwanese sovereignty over Taiwan’s territories,” Derek Chen of the Public Construction Commission said, adding that Taiwan would need to carefully evaluate the projects if China continues to pose a threat to Taiwanese sovereignty. The proposals, known as the “new four links,” have been discussed for years, but have always stalled over national security concerns.

Some might assume the concerns would be over an invasion, which could be facilitated by a bridge allowing fast deployments of Chinese troops into the county.

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Iran used Chinese spy satellite to target US bases, ‘Financial Times’ reports

Iran secretly acquired a Chinese spy satellite in late 2024 that allowed it to target US military bases across the Middle East during the recent war, the Financial Times reported yesterday.

The TEE-01B satellite, built and launched by Chinese company Earth Eye Co, was acquired by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Aerospace Force after it was launched into space from China, the report said, citing leaked Iranian military documents. Iranian military commanders directed the satellite to monitor major US military sites, the newspaper said, citing time-stamped coordinate lists, satellite imagery and orbital analyses.

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China has so far weathered the historic oil crisis. But as Xi prepares to meet Trump, costs are starting to grow

China, the world’s largest importer of energy, has so far weathered the global energy shock brought on by war in the Gulf well compared with some of its Asian neighbors. But as global fuel markets remain volatile amid an uneasy US-Iran ceasefire and a new American military blockade that threatens Iranian exports, the stakes of the conflict are only rising for Beijing.

One reason? As the main importer of Iranian oil, China is the country that stands to be the most impacted by US moves impacting its flow – both last month when the White House removed certain US sanctions on Iranian barrels, and now, as the US military launches a blockade of Iranian ports.

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As Trump attacks friends and foes, Americans are changing their minds about China

As the Trump administration wages real war with adversaries and trade wars with friends, Americans are changing their minds about the United States’ biggest rival, China, for the better, according to a new survey.

It’s a stark difference from just a few years ago, when Sinophobia and anti-Asian hate crimes in the US spiked during the Covid pandemic. Tensions between the two countries had deepened after a trade battle during US President Donald Trump’s first term, and by 2023, only 14% of Americans had a favorable view of China, according to data released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center.

Now, that figure has nearly doubled to 27% – reflecting a broad shift in sentiment across the American public, especially among Democrats and young people. It mirrors a greater curiosity toward Chinese culture and entertainment on Western social media, evident in recent trends such as “Chinamaxxing.”

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Philippines says it seized cyanide on Chinese boats operating around disputed atoll

The Philippines discovered cyanide on Chinese boats operating around a disputed atoll in the South China Sea, security officials from the country said on Monday. Authorities said laboratory tests confirmed the presence of the highly toxic substance in bottles seized by the Philippine navy in operations at Second Thomas Shoal last year.

Officials warned that the cyanide could have had serious consequences for marine life and weakened the reef supporting a warship that Manila grounded on the atoll to reinforce its maritime claim.

“We wish to underscore that the use of cyanide in Ayungin Shoal is a form of sabotage that seeks to kill local fish populations, depriving Navy personnel of a vital food source,” Cornelio Valencia, National Security Council spokesperson, told a press conference using the Philippines’ name for the atoll.

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Medical scans and chips: the hidden fallout of the Iran war for China

Four months ago, a dozen academics and researchers from China’s top oil and gas producers issued a warning buried in an academic journal: the nation’s quest for self-sufficiency had a critical weak spot.

The threat they identified was helium, a colorless, odorless gas with a wide range of uses, from regulating temperatures during semiconductor manufacturing to cooling medical scanning devices, testing for leaks in pipelines, and pressurizing space rocket fuel tanks. The problem was that over 83 percent of the country’s supply came from outside China.

“Because these supply sources are highly vulnerable to geopolitical shifts, the security of the nation’s supply chain now faces a severe challenge,” they wrote last December.

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China’s exports grew 2.5% in March in a sharp slowdown as Iran war raises uncertainty

China’s exports grew 2.5% in March from a year ago, significantly slowing from the previous two months as uncertainties rose from the Iran war and its impact on energy prices and global demand. The March export data released by China’s customs agency Tuesday missed analysts’ estimates and was sharply down from the 21.8% export growth recorded for January and February.

Imports last month surged 27.8%, up from the 19.8% year-on-year increase in the first two months of this year.

Technology-related exports including a jump in shipments of semiconductors from China on the global artificial intelligence boom have powered its robust exports in early 2026, but economists say impacts from the prolonged Iran war could affect overall global demand for Chinese exports this year.

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China releases more names to assert its Tibet-claim on Arunachal Pradesh

For the sixth time since 2017, China has released a list of what it calls “standardized” names for places in Arunachal Pradesh to assert its territorial claim over the Indian state which New Delhi has dismissed as “mischievous” and “baseless”. China claims that Arunachal Pradesh is “Zangnan” (southern Tibet) on the basis of its bogus assertion that Tibet has been part of it since ancient times.

The list, published by China’s ministry of civil affairs on Apr 10, covers a total of 23 mountain passes, peaks, rivers, and settlements. Each is assigned a name in Chinese characters, Tibetan script, and pinyin, with precise GPS coordinates, noted Indiansentinels.com Apr 13. India on Apr 12 called the Chinese exercise a “mischievous attempt”, adding such “baseless narratives cannot alter the undeniable reality” on ground.

“India categorically rejects any mischievous attempts by the Chinese side to assign fictitious names to places which form part of the territory of India,” ministry of external affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said.

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