Israel envoy calls claims of Chinese aid to Iran baseless

Former Israeli security officials and the Chinese ambassador to Israel clashed over the extent of military cooperation between Beijing and Tehran on Thursday. The debate occurred during the SIGNAL Group's annual conference at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, argued that China has become essential to Iran's war effort. Amidror stated that after Israeli strikes damaged Iran's missile production infrastructure, Tehran turned to Beijing to restore its manufacturing capabilities. He claimed, "The Iranians could not resume their capability to produce missiles without help from China." Amidror noted that while he was uncertain whether the aid came from the civilian or military sector, the dependency was clear.

Chinese Ambassador Xiao Junzheng rejected these assertions as baseless. Xiao defended China's export policies by citing international law and domestic regulations. "China maintains normal relations with Iran within the framework of international law, just like European countries do," Xiao said. He emphasized that under China's internal export control law, the country does not sell weapons to any party in an armed conflict. Xiao also stated that if Israel believed China was transporting lethal weapons, the Israeli government would formally notify Beijing.

The dispute follows recent investigations into Iranian purchases of Chinese goods. A September Reuters report cited five sources who said Iran used oil revenues in a barter-like arrangement to buy billions of dollars in Chinese items, including military equipment. That report indicated the arrangement had been used at least once in the previous year for multimillion-dollar air-defense contracts. China's Foreign Ministry responded that it was not familiar with the specific arrangement described.

A subsequent Reuters investigation found that a network of more than 5,000 Iranian Defense Ministry-linked agencies imported at least $2 billion in equipment since January 2025. The imported materials included rocket-fuel ingredients, industrial machinery, and heavy-duty vehicles suitable for missile and drone production. While China was named as a source country alongside Russia and Germany, experts noted that some materials had dual civilian and military uses. The investigation did not confirm whether Beijing directly authorized these transfers.

Former Mossad director Efraim Halevy added historical context to the debate. Halevy recounted a 1993 visit by then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to Beijing, which he said was designed to demand that China stop providing scientific support to Iran's nuclear program. Rabin, accompanied by then-Mossad director Shabtai Shavit, presented Chinese president Jiang Zemin with detailed intelligence, which Jiang Zemin denied. Halevy claimed that a building in Isfahan still contains equipment for processing high-level uranium and bears a plaque thanking China for its contribution in both Farsi and Chinese. The Jerusalem Post could not independently verify the existence of the plaque.