(Preview) The PRC and the Past Two Weeks in Iran; Ten Speeches in Taiwan; London Framework Faltering?; All Eyes on the EU
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Hello and welcome to Sharp China. I'm Andrew Sharp and you are listening to a free preview of today's episode. This is a big opportunity potentially for the Chinese military industrial complex. Yeah, right. Potentially. But again, I, you know, we'll have to see whether how happy it would be to see Iran suddenly start buying a whole bunch of sophisticated Chinese weapons. Right. And

And to go back to the point on whether China is thrilled with the way all this has unfolded, I don't think that they would trade the opportunity for their military industrial complex for the uncertainty that now pervades here. And the ultimate downside, again, China buys over 90% of Iran's oil. And because of international sanctions,

A lot of that oil has been steeply discounted over the last several years. So there are these so-called teapot refineries that operate. I think it's now only like $2 or $3 a barrel discount. It's narrow. It's not as much as it was. It's still meaningful when you're buying, you know... A lot of oil, yeah. Seven figures. So...

So the thing is, again, President Trump earlier today posted on True Social about now China can buy Iranian oil. So people are now wondering, does this mean the U.S. is pulling back on the sanctions it has on some of these Chinese purchases of oil? It's totally unclear. Well, and speaking of lack of clarity, there's another aspect of what's happening here. And I'm going to quote now from Tucker Carlson on June 4th, who said,

Iran isn't Iraq or Libya or even North Korea. While it's often described as a rogue state, Iran has powerful allies. It's now part of a global bloc called BRICS, which represents the majority of the world's landmass, population, economy, and military power.

Iran has extensive military ties with Russia. It sells the overwhelming majority of its oil exports to China. Iran isn't alone. An attack on Iran could very easily become a world war.

Now, look, the situation remains fluid. So I'll knock on wood that the world does not, in fact, end up in a world war. How did we end up quoting Tucker Carlson on our podcast? I know. Breaking new ground here. For those who have been following the MAGA civil war over this, Tucker is now known in some quarters as Tucker Carlson. Oh, boy. I hadn't heard that before. I thought you were just stuttering. No, no, no. There's quite the...

I mean, I think I wouldn't quote him for geopolitical insight, but I will say that the one point where I think he points out, it's an interesting point he raises, even though he was

dead wrong, which is around, I think you certainly could probably would not be surprised to find that the Iranian leadership is not happy with China because they didn't do anything. That's exactly why I read the quote, in addition to making him look a little bit ridiculous because his predictions were incredibly dire and thus far, again, knocking on wood here, have not come to pass. But I mean, I

I think the other loss for China in the midst of all this is a loss of credibility with various allies all over the world because everybody has seen China bring Iran closer over the last four or five years. And that relationship did not net out to any sort of material support or even, I mean, we got a lot of strongly worded statements, but do you think that's a reasonable concern on China's side? Like does an operation like this

expose the limits or maybe the transactional nature of PRC partnerships with allies? I mean, I think it's... Yes, China does not want to get involved in these foreign military entanglements. I think they've seen...

the damage it did to the former Soviet Union, they see the damage it's done to the United States, right? And so I don't think they see any upside, but it does expose the limits. And so, you know, this week there's, you know, Iran is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, along with China, Russia, and several other countries. There's a defense minister's meeting in China, I think Wednesday or Thursday this week,

It'd be interesting to see if the Iranian, you know, defense minister, if there is one, I don't actually know if the Israelis have killed him or not, but if there is a new one, whether or not he goes. Yeah. Because he's sort of like, what's, you know, what's the upside of being a member? Because our country is just... What are we getting out of this? We've just been ravaged and we keep getting these statements and press releases and communiques, but ultimately, what does it get us? Right. Yeah. Well, we will see. And, you know, BRICS is not any sort of a military alliance. BRICS is a very, you know,

That was the most ridiculous aspect of the Tucker Carlson quote. This whole episode has been, I mean, again, it's been very useful in exposing some of the just the- False narratives. Well, just the intellectual bankruptcy of some of the more well-known sort of pundits out there. Yeah, well, and I would say- Not limited to the Republican side, but that's domestic politics. We're not going to get into it. No, but I will say as far as domestic politics is concerned-

Some of what we saw from the U.S. is a corrective to the taco narrative that has the U.S. looking like a paper tiger to the rest of the world. And that's where the domestic politics bleed into the geopolitics to some degree, because the U.S.,

may have suffered from a lack of credibility. And of course, the PRC here will try to make the U.S. look like reckless warmongers because China's banging that drum 365 days a year. I don't know that that talking point suddenly resonates in some new way in the wake of Iran's bombing. Certainly in the Middle East region, I think they maybe have less

supporters of that just because Iran has been such a problem in the region for so long. Not very popular, yeah. And Iran, you know, Iran getting a nuclear bomb was a problem for all the countries in the region. I think MBS and Saudi Arabia had already said if they get one, we're going to build one. But anyway, here we are

I think that this is actually, from last week where things look like they're headed to now, this actually, I think, is a relatively positive outcome for Beijing. Yeah. They've avoided the worst case scenario. Right. But, you know, if this really, we do end up with a ceasefire and the nuclear program really is set back by many years, it does, I think, in the region at least, reconfirm the importance of the U.S. And so from that perspective, I think,

China, I think, has potentially suffered a little bit of like, yeah, okay, these guys, they can host nice meetings and issue nice press releases, but when we really need stuff, eh.

Yeah, yeah, I saw that with AI. We're sending the diffusion rule last month and, you know, the selling of all the NVIDIA chips into the into the region. Again, China would be very happy if they could do that with Huawei, but they just can't. Mm hmm. Yes. Well, more will be revealed. But for the time being, let's hope the ceasefire holds. Let's knock on wood. And I think the takeaway is that China is

again, is not overjoyed with the way all of this has played out, but they've avoided the worst case scenario with regime change. But they've had a rough few months in the Middle East. I mean, you look at the fall of Assad in Syria. I mean, Assad was a pariah and China hosted him a couple of years ago, gave him the red carpet treatment, had his whole family go to China.

Yeah, well, they've bet a lot on the Iran partnership and the relationship there, and it has not worked out for them thus far. But at least for now, the regime is still in charge, and China is still buying lots of oil from Iran, and the Strait of Hormuz is open.

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