CHINA STRIKES BACK AT IRAN SANCTIONS
CHINA STRIKES BACK AT IRAN SANCTIONS
More than two months into his ill-conceived, flagrantly illegal war on Iran, Donald Trump is flailing to salvage any semblance of success. Not only did the US and Israel abjectly fail in their strategic objectives: they're now in a far worse position than before, with Iran firmly in control of the Strait of Hormuz. Until Trump's farcical 'double blockade' and the short-lived fiasco of 'Project Freedom', Iran was even exporting more oil daily than it was prior to the war.
Trump is now turning in desperation to China, the primary buyer of Iranian oil, to extricate him from this debacle of his own making. Just months ago he had expected to waltz into Beijing in late March, having choked off two of its main energy suppliers in just the first quarter of 2026. Now, with just days to go before his rescheduled visit, he's all but begging for a face-saving concession from his unamused hosts.
Absent any kind of leverage over Iran itself, the US has upped the ante by directly sanctioning one of China's largest refineries processing imported Iranian crude. Thus far, the Treasury Department has only gone after small 'teapot refineries' so insulated from the world market that the illegal 'long-arm jurisdiction' of the US can't affect their operations anyway. But Hengli Petrochemical is different: it's an order of magnitude bigger than the others and occupies an essential place in Northeast China's energy matrix.
This time, China was done skirting under the radar. It had no choice but to strike back directly at this affront to its sovereignty. For the first time ever, it invoked the 2021 Blocking Rules and ordered that the sanctions 'shall not be recognised, implemented, or complied with' by any entity subject to Chinese law. In so doing, China is not just depriving Trump of much-needed leverage going into his trip to Beijing. It's making a huge stride toward global delinking from US hegemony and the construction of a genuinely multipolar world order.
posted by Satish Sharma at
05:21
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