Reports link China supply chains to both missile defense and missile guidance systems for Iran

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China supplies the magnets inside the Arrow interceptor that defends Tel Aviv. China supplies the BeiDou satellite navigation inside the Fattah-2 missile that attacks Tel Aviv. The same country made the sword and the shield. And today, that country is hosting the diplomat who wants to broker peace between the people swinging the sword and the people holding the shield.

This is not an abstraction. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute confirmed two weeks ago that US interceptor missiles, including Patriot, THAAD, Arrow, and David’s Sling, depend on Chinese-processed rare earth elements for the neodymium and samarium-cobalt magnets that steer their guidance systems, power their actuators, and control their seekers. China controls 90 percent of the global rare earth supply chain. The United States is 100 percent net-import reliant for finished rare earth magnets. West Point’s Modern War Institute called this “a shot across the bow of the US defense industrial base.” There is no substitute. There is no stockpile. There is no domestic capacity that can scale in less than a decade.

Now hold that dependency in one hand. In the other, hold the verified fact that Iranian missiles, including the Fattah-2 hypersonic, the Kheibar Shekan, the Emad, and every Shahed drone in the current barrage, navigate using China’s BeiDou-3 encrypted military satellite signals, are fuelled by Chinese ammonium perchlorate propellant, contain Chinese sensors, semiconductors, and voltage converters, and are aimed using imagery from Russia’s Khayyam satellite and China’s Jilin-1 constellation.

The Arrow interceptor that Israel fires to protect Haifa contains Chinese magnets. The Fattah-2 that Iran fires to destroy Haifa contains Chinese navigation. Both weapons are manufactured using Chinese supply chains. Both are being depleted simultaneously. And the faster they are depleted, the more leverage China accumulates, because China is the only country that can resupply both sides and the only country that can cut off both sides.

RUSI reports that Israel has expended 122 of 150 Arrow 2/3 interceptors and 135 of 250 David’s Sling missiles. Each interceptor that is fired and cannot be replaced because China controls the magnet supply chain represents a permanent reduction in Israeli defensive capability. Each Iranian missile that is fired and cannot be replaced because Israeli strikes have hit the factories represents a permanent reduction in Iranian offensive capability. Both arsenals are shrinking toward zero. The country that manufactured the components inside both arsenals is the country hosting peace talks in Beijing right now.

This is not irony. This is architecture. China positioned itself as the indispensable supplier to every party in this conflict before the first missile was fired. It sells rare earths to the US defence industrial base. It sells navigation data and propellant precursors to the IRGC. It buys 80 percent of Iran’s oil exports. It holds the rare earth leverage that Bessent needs released to build more interceptors. And today, it is sitting across the table from Pakistan’s foreign minister discussing whether to become the guarantor of a peace deal that would resolve the war its supply chains are sustaining on both sides.

The war will end when the weapons run out or when the supplier decides it should. Both paths lead to Beijing.

https://open.substack.com/pub/shanakaanslemperera/p/the-last-molecule-standing?r=6p7b5o&utm_medium=ios

China is strongly linked to Iran’s military ecosystem in three real ways:

1. Missile guidance and navigation support

Iran has used BeiDou satellite navigation signals or compatible receivers in parts of its missile and drone ecosystem, according to multiple defense analysis reports and think tank assessments.
This is not “China guiding missiles,” but Iran using Chinese civilian/military dual-use positioning infrastructure

2. Component-level supply chains

China dominates rare earth processing and magnet supply chains, which feed into global defense manufacturing.
These materials can end up indirectly in systems like missile actuators, sensors, and guidance subsystems (including Western and non-Western systems).

3. Defense cooperation ecosystem

Reports from defense think tanks indicate expanding China–Iran defense ties, including missiles, radars, and industrial inputs, though not full integrated weapons co-production at scale.

https://caspianpost.com/analytics/china-s-strategic-stakes-in-iran-s-fight-for-survival

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/chinas-export-controls-threaten-us-interceptors-during-conflict-with-iran/

https://www.hudson.org/missile-defense/mena-defense-intelligence-digest-september-2025-can-kasapoglu