Free Republic

Trump wants to preserve relations with Xi, but Iranian customs data show Chinese entities have made thousands of shipments of components used in drones and missiles This summer, when the U.S. and Iran signed a temporary truce, China touted its role in easing tensions in the Middle East. It said its foreign ministry made dozens of calls to nudge peace along, and that President Xi Jinping himself had intervened with suggestions to end the fighting.That same day, a plane from China landed in Tehran. It carried a shipment for Iran’s Ministry of Defense that included electronics components that can be...

The possibility of U.S. lockdowns—never attempted on this scale in the history of pandemics—was already in the air in early March 2020. The theory of lockdown had been floating around for 15 years but now China was first to try it, and claim enormous success, however fraudulently. Incredibly, the United States was set to try it out too but getting Trump on board was going to take some doing. The federal government had the quarantine power since 1944. That much we knew. But just how expansive could its exercise be? Would they dare quarantine the well with the sick? How...

The first train to connect China and Iran arrived in Tehran on Monday loaded with Chinese goods, reviving the ancient Silk Road, the Iranian railway company said. The train, carrying 32 containers of commercial products from eastern Zhejiang province, took 14 days to make the 9,500-kilometer (5,900-mile) journey through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. [...] According to Iranian media, more than a third of Iran's foreign trade is with China, which is Tehran's top customer for oil exports. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani agreed last month to build economic ties worth up to $600 billion within the next...