Xi pledged to stop arming Iran—US intelligence warns the weapons still flow

During his May 15 visit to Beijing, President Donald Trump told Fox News that Chinese leader Xi Jinping had personally promised to halt weapons shipments to Iran and help keep the Strait of Hormuz open to commercial shipping. The Chinese Foreign Ministry, by the end of the visit, issued only a statement calling for "the earliest possible achievement of a mutually beneficial peace" — with no mention of arms, monitoring mechanisms, or sanctions, according to Radio Free Europe's Russian Service.

Trump described the exchange in direct terms: "Xi Jinping wanted a deal to happen. And he offered help, saying: 'If I can help in any way, I would like to help.'" The president called Xi's pledge not to supply Iran with military equipment "a very serious statement." No specific monitoring agreements or sanctions were signed.

The Trump administration pushed Beijing to halt such transfers because US officials say they enable attacks on American and allied forces, weaken US military advantages, and undermine sanctions and regional stability.

What intelligence agencies say

US intelligence agencies tell a different story. According to CIA data cited in the report, in April and May of this year Chinese companies were actively negotiating the shipment to Iran of man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) — shoulder-fired missiles capable of targeting low-flying aircraft and drones. African intermediaries were used to obscure the weapons' origin. Advanced radar systems and spare parts for anti-aircraft missiles were also part of the discussions.

Beyond covert channels, Beijing has been supplying Tehran with dual-use technologies — components for drone and missile production — that are difficult to trace because of their civilian applications. China has also been confirmed to be providing Iran with intelligence on US troop movements in the region.

In late 2024, Iran acquired a Chinese reconnaissance satellite used to track US military concentrations in the Middle East. Congressional testimony from US intelligence officials in March raised suspicions that Iran had been using access to China's BeiDou satellite navigation system — the American GPS alternative — to coordinate drone and missile strikes on targets across the Middle East.

Russia, according to the CIA, has separately been supplying Iran with satellite targeting data, with Moscow aiming to help the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps strike US warships and American military and diplomatic facilities in the region.

A training ground for the next war

A Politico analysis published ahead of Trump's Beijing trip argued that the drawn-out US-Iran war has become, from China's perspective, what the report describes as "a free training ground" — allowing Beijing to identify vulnerabilities in American military strategy.

According to the analysis, China has been closely studying Washington's weapons use: the pace of missile strikes, intelligence operations, the expenditure of expensive munitions, logistics, and gaps in American defenses across the Middle East. The assessment is that this systematically undermines the US position ahead of any future confrontation — including over Taiwan.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated in March that Iran had already received "military assistance" from both China and Russia, though he provided no details. Iranian officials have not commented on whether Chinese weapons have been used against American or Israeli forces; according to all available data, no Chinese-made weapons have been deployed on the battlefield against US or Israeli forces since the war began.

IRGC commanders, meanwhile, have been discussing post-war military ties with Beijing, according to Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, speaking to The New York Times: "I hear more and more voices coming from within the IRGC ranks — which has now become the only real power in Iran — openly stating that Tehran's mistake was that it was too long too 'embarrassed' to draw closer to China and Russia, and instead tried to maintain independence."

The economics behind the pledge

China remains Iran's largest trading partner, purchasing more than three-quarters of Iran's oil exports — roughly 12 million barrels per day in early 2026 — at a significant discount due to American sanctions. That commercial relationship, analysts note, makes any clean break from Tehran structurally difficult regardless of what Xi tells visiting American presidents.

Chinese arms sales to Iran began immediately after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and expanded continuously through the 1980s, when the Iran-Iraq War coincided with market reforms under Deng Xiaoping. Deng instructed Chinese enterprises to abandon state subsidies and pursue commercial profit, which gave state defense companies the right to export. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, from roughly 1982 to 1987 Iran received large quantities of Chinese missiles, fighter jets, tanks, and small arms — while China simultaneously sold the same weapons to Iraq, leaving both sides fighting each other with identical Chinese equipment.

The Reagan administration strongly opposed Chinese arms sales to Iran from the outset. Washington's particular anger was directed at the HY-2 Silkworm anti-ship cruise missile, which Iran used during the 1987 "Tanker War" — striking one tanker with American owners and another flying a US flag in Kuwaiti waters.

After the Iran-Iraq War, Iran developed its own Noor anti-ship missile — a reverse-engineered copy of China's C-802 with active radar homing and a low-altitude flight profile — with Chinese assistance. The missile remains in service with the Iranian Navy and the IRGC naval forces.

UN sanctions from 2006 onward led Beijing to stop signing new arms contracts with Tehran and to vote for anti-Iran resolutions — a shift driven less by legal principle than by China's expanding relationships with Gulf monarchies including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar. But dual-use technology transfers continued, covering chemical precursors for ballistic missile fuel, radio-frequency connectors, and turbine blades for Iranian drones.