China has started supplying weapons to Iran using the latter’s ceasefire with Israel as a shield. Several West Asian media outlets have reported that Tehran recently received the HQ-9 air defence system with surface-to-air missile batteries from Beijing.

Earlier, the Asian Giant provided Pakistan with the HQ-9P/HQ-9BE version of the HQ-9 air defence system for intercepting Indian missiles. This system can offer multi-layered protection against aerial threats with a range of 100-200km. The Chinese air defence system includes AESA radars and Mach 14 missiles that travel at 14 times the speed of sound (or approximately 17,248.8km/h).

The Middle East Eye reported that the Islamic Republic received HQ-9 air defence system from China in exchange for crude oil. Tehran had previously imported the LY-80/LY-80E air defence system from Beijing. It is an export variant of the HQ-16 that is known for its ability to intercept various aerial targets, like aircraft, cruise missiles and UAVs. The LY-80 is a crucial part of Iran’s air defence network, designed to protect critical assets and ground troops.

Incidentally, China is the largest buyer of Iranian oil. In its May 2025 report, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) mentioned that around 90% of Iran’s crude oil and condensate exports were directed towards China. Condensate is a liquid formed by the condensation of a gas or vapour. In the petroleum industry, it refers to a mixture of light hydrocarbons, often found alongside natural gas, that are liquid at standard temperature and pressure.

On June 12, 2025, Israel carried out airstrikes, codenamed Operation Rising Lion, on various cities, including Tehran, and nuclear facilities in Iran. Thereafter, a full-scale missile and drone war began between the two countries. On the night of June 21, the US Air Force launched Operation Midnight Hammer, dropping 36 Bunker Blaster Series GBU-57 bombs and Tomahawk cruise missiles on three Iranian nuclear facilities – Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan. Finally, Israel and Iran accepted a ceasefire plan proposed by US President Donald John Trump on June 24, 2025 to end their 12-day war that roiled West Asia, after Tehran launched a retaliatory limited missile attack on a US military base in Qatar. Political analysts are of the opinion that the Chinese arms exports to Tehran could trigger a fresh tension in the region.

Palestine Becomes ‘Ideal Laboratory For Military-Industrial Complex’
(Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) Strategic Alert weekly newsletter; Volume 39, No. 28-29, July 10, 2025): The outcome of the meeting between US President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu at the White House on July 7, 2025 has not yet been assessed, but the first round of indirect talks on a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas Movement ended inconclusively and the forced displacement of the population in Gaza is on the agenda as the Israeli Government is advancing plans to take over the West Bank. Thus, no end to the bloodshed is in sight.

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, presented the scathing new report penned by her, titled From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide, in Geneva on July 3. Published on June 30, the report charges that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is a “colonial project” responsible for “one of the cruellest genocides in modern history”, causing an apocalyptic situation and suffering beyond imagination. The Israeli-US-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, she said, is a “death trap engineered to kill or force the flight of a starved, bombarded, emaciated population”.

However, the centre-piece of the 24-page report presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva is her identification of more than 60 “corporate actors” accused of collaborating with and bolstering Israel’s military industrial complex, making them complicit in imposing an “economy of genocide”. And this, she warned, is “only the tip of the iceberg”. In her public presentation, Albanese named 48 of these entities, including arms manufacturers, banks, tech companies, energy giants, academic institutions, etc., which according to ger have profited from and contributed to the genocide and apartheid by “sustaining the Israeli state’s actions”.

Albanese zeroed in on the Big Tech companies and the role of AI systems that she stressed the Israeli military developed to process and generate targets in Gaza, expressing the belief that the Palantir company had played a particularly nefarious role.

With its new weapons, customised surveillance, lethal drones and radar systems, Israel has made Palestine into “an ideal laboratory for the Israeli military-industrial complex”, stated Albanese.

Latest Release: Tegart’s War: A Story of Empire, Rebellion and Terror by Stuart Logie
Available on Amazon, Amazon India and Kindle

Boundless Ocean of Politics on Facebook

Boundless Ocean of Politics on Twitter

Boundless Ocean of Politics on Linkedin

Contact us: kousdas@gmail.com

Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das