China moves to cut off Israel, thwart US, in Iran

China’s military and intelligence agencies are moving to cut off the influence and reach of Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad, which they describe as a “Pandora’s box” of danger to global security, according to new reporting in the Cradle.

China has recognised that the US and Israel have established a pattern of internal, covert campaigns of sabotage or ‘decapitation’ attacks on their targets before launching all-out military action: think pager attacks in Lebanon, the funding, equipping and assisting of ISIS in Syria.

And, of course, the recent ‘protests’ in Iran that were exposed as provoked, coordinated and directed by Israeli operatives and their Iranian agents. So the Chinese are moving to inhibit these tactics in Iran. At the same time, it is conducting joint military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz with Iran and Russia even as the US builds up forces in the same area.

The internal, land-based target of the Chinese operation is, as the Cradle states:

Mossad’s ability to embed agents, compromise sensitive databases, disable radar networks, and facilitate precision strikes from inside Iranian territory is interpreted as a shift toward what Chinese analysts call ‘Informationized and Intelligent’ Warfare.

This represents the convergence of cyber sabotage, internal recruitment, technological penetration, and operational coordination – a hybrid model in which intelligence operations hollow out defensive infrastructure before kinetic action begins…

…[which] Military expert Fu Qianshao, a former analyst in the Chinese Air Force, characterized [as] Mossad’s success in planting agents and disabling Iranian radar and air defense systems from within [and] as a “new pattern of intelligence warfare.”

Chinese military analysts recognised that Mossad’s June 2025 sabotage campaign exposed “structural vulnerabilities” in Iranian security systems — and that the tactics used against Iran could be used elsewhere, including against China and its interests. So it has decided to help Iran close Iran’s technical vulnerabilities, both to help an ally and as an exercise for itself. It is also looking to bring Iran into the ‘Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)’, which shares intelligence and promotes cooperation among its member states.

China’s technical support

The effectiveness of the technical support was seen clearly in Iran’s success, with Chinese assistance and tech, in blocking access to Starlink. Israel and the US were using the Musk-owned system to communicate with their agitators on the ground. Until suddenly they weren’t, leaving the covert force rudderless. Again with Chinese (and Russian) help, Iran then identified and rolled up Israel’s Iranian network — including claims that it killed Mossad’s main organiser in Iran — making it a costly adventure for the Zionist occupation.

China is now also providing Iran with satellite intel, including detailed images of the US military build-up in the region. In conjunction with Iran’s own, and imported, hypersonic missile systems US bases and naval formations are particularly vulnerable. China’s February 2026 gift of a model of its latest J-20 advanced fighter jet to Iran also signalled its intention of future supply, but manufacture of the aircraft and the need to train pilots mean that this is not an immediate boost to Iran’s defences. However, its advanced missile systems — which the US and Israel are unrealistically demanding Iran give up — pose a major enough threat, particularly with Chinese satellite imagery and potentially guidance.

Iran gave the US warning of this when its drone recently ‘buzzed’ and photographed a US aircraft carrier. The US presented the shooting down of a Shahed-139 drone as proof of US defensive systems. However, the drone had reportedly already transmitted its data back to Iran. The use of a $100m F-35 jet to shoot down a basic $20,000 drone, with a $430,000 missile, after it had completed its mission was hardly a compelling case.

The Strait of Hormuz

Iran is acknowledged to have the ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz to both naval and commercial shipping. Indeed, it already did so this week during what passes for negotiations with an untrustworthy US administration making demands it knows Iran can’t accept. Together with strikes on US airbases and oil interests in the region, Iran could trigger a global financial crisis if attacked. Tehran is already said to have signalled to the US that there would be no repeat of its restrained and pre-warned retaliation against US bases in the 2025 ’12-day war’. It clearly cannot continue to allow the US and Israel to attack it and then make only a symbolic retaliation in response.

Combined with the joint military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s improved domestic security and enhanced defensive capabilities, this threat is the most likely reason that Trump is still hesitating to attack despite Benjamin Netanyahu’s February 2026 US visit. Netanyahu reportedly threatened Trump that if the US doesn’t attack Iran, Israel will do so unilaterally and ‘make’ the US support it. However, this threat may have sounded hollow, given the retaliatory pummelling Iran gave Israel in June 2025.

Israel’s undoubted ‘kompromat’ on Trump, given Trump’s closeness to Israeli spy-paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, may be more decisive in forcing US action. However, recent reports and comments by Iran’s Khamenei suggest that Iran has hacked the US Justice Department’s unredacted Epstein files and has evidence of Trump’s sexual activity with minors. Certainly Iran successfully hacked the White House in 2025 and Trump’s presidential campaign in 2024.

Coin-toss

Trump’s inherent erratic nature and reported advancing dementia make it a coin-toss which way he’ll go under such opposing pressures. Perhaps a ‘knife edge’ is more appropriate given the danger he and Israel pose to the world. Past form suggests Netanyahu will get his way to the harm of just about everybody else. But just perhaps, China’s, and Russia’s, increased show of support for Iran will be enough to face him down. Long enough to complete Iran’s defence development, at least.

Whatever one’s opinion of the Islamic Republic government, it is the main bulwark of resistance to Israel’s ‘Greater Israel’ regional greed for its neighbours’ land — and its slaughter and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Anyone who cares about the Palestinians and about keeping the whole of western Asia out of the hands of a flailing US and an ethno-supremacist Israel should be hoping the equipping and deterrence work.

Featured image via DefenseSecurityAsia