Two Iranian cargo vessels carrying a crucial chemical ingredient for missile propellant will sail from China to Iran over the next few weeks, according to intelligence from security officials in two western countries.
The Iranian-flagged ships — the Golbon and the Jairan — are expected to carry more than 1,000 tonnes of sodium perchlorate, which is used to make ammonium perchlorate, the main ingredient for solid propellant for missiles.
Two of the officials said the sodium perchlorate could produce 960 tonnes of ammonium perchlorate, which makes up 70 per cent of the propellant for solid-fuel missiles. That amount of ammonium perchlorate could produce 1,300 tonnes of propellant, enough to fuel 260 mid-range Iranian missiles such as the Kheibar Shekan or Haj Qassem, the officials added.
Ammonium perchlorate is among chemicals controlled by the Missile Technology Export Control Regime, an international anti-proliferation body.
The chemicals were being shipped to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite arm of the Iranian military, two of the officials said.
The two officials said 34 20-ft containers containing the chemical had been loaded onto the Golbon, which departed the Chinese island of Daishan on Tuesday. The Jairan is expected to depart China with 22 containers in early February. Both ships, which are owned by Iranian entities, were expected to make the three-week voyage to Iran without making any port calls, the officials said.
The officials said the chemicals were loaded onto the Golbon at Taicang, a port just north of Shanghai, and were destined for Bandar Abbas, a port in southern Iran on the Persian Gulf.
Based on data from vessel tracker Marine Traffic, the Golbon spent at least several days off Daishan island before leaving on Tuesday. Marine Traffic showed the Jairan about 75km south of Daishan off the coast of Ningbo in China’s Zhejiang province early on Wednesday.
The officials could not say if Beijing was aware of the shipments. The US and its allies have frequently criticised China for providing support for regimes from Tehran to Moscow.
The Chinese embassy in Washington said it was “not familiar” with the situation and that Beijing was committed to “maintaining peace and stability in the Middle East and Gulf region and actively promoting the political and diplomatic settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue”.
The Iranian government declined to comment.
Dennis Wilder, a former top CIA China analyst, said China had carried out extensive arms sales to Iran dating back to 1979, including supplying “Silkworm” anti-ship missiles in 1986 during the Iran-Iraq war.
“Since the early 1990s, China has assisted the Iranian military extensively with its ballistic missile development programme and has provided expertise, technology, parts, and training,” said Wilder, who is now at Georgetown University.
“China’s motivation for secretly assisting Iran today includes clandestinely helping Iran produce missiles for the Russian war effort [in Ukraine], cementing common cause against perceived US hegemonism . . . and Beijing’s purchase annually of large amounts of discounted Iranian crude oil.”
Washington has also criticised China for violating US sanctions by purchasing Iranian petroleum, but critics of the Biden administration say it did not do enough to enforce the sanctions.
The US has also increased pressure on Beijing over the past two years for not doing more to stop the shipment of dual-use items to Russia that have helped Moscow in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But the volume of shipments has shown little sign of falling.
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