James King

It isn't any kind of a secret that China has been selling arms to Iran for decades.

That's no secret at all.

What's really key is whether China has been selling arms to Iran since the end of February when this war between the U.S.

and Israel and Iran began.

That's the key point, and that's where quite a lot of ambiguity lies right at the moment.

And I'm James King.

Yeah, absolutely, Alice.

I mean, we're recording on Monday mid-morning US time, and the blockade that the US was going to impose on the Strait of Hormuz has just started a few minutes ago.

No news from that that I've managed to see in the last few minutes.

But of course, this is a very fast-moving and highly unpredictable situation.

But as you say, Alice, I think the key takeaway right now is that China appears to be back in the crosshairs of the U.S.

Only a week ago, we were talking about China as a potential mediator to the conflict or maybe even a peacemaker.

You know, China has this five-point peace plan.

But now I think we flip-flopped and it looks like China could be, again, a loser from this situation.

And it looks like, as you say, the military tension between the US and China could grow considerably.

So just quickly on the first point of China being a loser, it's a rather obvious point, but let's state it again.

China gets 37.7% of all of the oil exports that transit through the Strait of Hormuz.

That's the most that any single country gets.

So given that the U.S.

has just started a blockade, obviously China has more to lose from this situation in terms of imported oil than any other country.