> The US military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel, ... Military planes were in the air

A few months ago I listened to a talk a General (Admiral?) gave at CSIS where he said that the US purposefully announced their drone-hellscape plan for a Taiwanese invasion in order to force the PLA to reconsider their options/success-likelihood. I wonder if something similar could be coming of this reporting, on the face it looks like an embarrassing fumble, but it implies:

a) the US is able to, and regularly is, tracking and analyzing the manifests of ships between Iran and China.

b) the US is ready and willing to interdict and board vessels even from the PLA.

That these facts are now public might deter the Chinese leadership from attempting to share nuclear tech with Iran or other countries in the future.

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IndeanCondor 4 hours ago | parent [-]

The Chinese haven't shared nuclear tech with the DPRK, an explicit PRC ally, whose advancements are instead based on Russian designs. PRC leadership are quite miffed with the North Koreans and view proliferation there as pushing RoK to manufacture weapons as well.

The PRC has been hard against nuclear proliferation as a policy over decades, it is highly compliant with IAEA inspection norms, despite the NPT not making it mandatory to be under those inspections. This policy is not something the US has in the past or will in the future engender into it through force.

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jawiggins 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Just because they haven't done something in the past doesn't mean they won't in the future. China has been providing material support to Iran both in terms of intel and military hardward, so it's not outlandish to be monitoring and planning for it to continue happening into the future.

	▲	orwin 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		China has sold military hardware to Iran in exchange for oil. They also proposed their help for a de-escalation plan to Pakistan if needed, letting regional powers handle the issue and never presented themselve as the only solution (They did the same for Turkye and the Ukraine war). I can name plenty of flaw and issues i saw in China, plenty of foreign policy i find dangerous, but you people make me want to defend them every time with your uncharitable opinions. China "do nothing, win" strategy is even true on the internet ffs.