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Two Iranian cargo ships carrying critical chemical components of missile propellant are scheduled to sail from China to Iran over the next few weeks, according to security officials from two Western countries.
The Iranian-flagged ships Golbon and Jairan are expected to carry more than 1,000 tons of sodium perchlorate, which is used to manufacture ammonium perchlorate, the main component of missile solid propellant.
Two of the officials said sodium perchlorate could produce 960 tons of ammonium perchlorate, which makes up 70% of the propellant for solid-fuel missiles. That amount of ammonium perchlorate could produce 1,300 tons of propellant, enough to fuel 260 Iranian intermediate-range missiles, including the Keybar Shekan and Hajj Qassem, officials said. they added.
Ammonium perchlorate is one of the chemicals controlled by the Missile Technology Control Regime, an international counterproliferation agency.
Two officials said the chemicals were being shipped to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite force in Iran’s military.
Two officials said 34 20-foot containers containing chemicals were on board the Golbong, which left China’s Daishan Island on Tuesday. The Jailan is scheduled to leave China in early February with 22 containers on board. Both ships are owned by Iranian entities and will make the three-week voyage to Iran without making any port calls, officials said.
Officials said the chemicals were loaded onto the Golbong at the port of Taicang, just north of Shanghai, and bound for Bandar Abbas, a port in southern Iran on the Persian Gulf.
The Gorbon remained off the coast of Daishan Island for at least several days before setting sail on Tuesday, according to data from ship tracker Marine Traffic. Maritime Traffic said early Wednesday that the Jairan was located about 75 kilometers south of Daishan, off the coast of Ningbo in China’s Zhejiang province.
Officials could not say whether the Chinese government was aware of the shipment. The United States and its allies have frequently criticized China for supporting regimes from Tehran to Moscow.
The Chinese embassy in Washington said the situation was “not well understood” and that the Chinese government “maintains peace and stability in the Middle East and the Gulf region, and actively promotes a political and diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear issue.” ” he said.
The Iranian government declined to comment.
Dennis Wilder, a former top China analyst at the CIA, said that China has made large-scale arms sales to Iran dating back to 1979, including against “silkworms” during the 1986 Iran-Iraq war. It also included the supply of naval missiles.
“Since the early 1990s, China has provided extensive support to the Iranian military’s ballistic missile program, providing expertise, technology, parts and training,” said Wilder, now at Georgetown University.
“Today, China’s motives for covertly supporting Iran include covertly helping Iran build missiles for Russia’s war effort (in Ukraine) and perceived U.S. hegemonism. This includes solidifying a common cause against…
The U.S. government has also accused China of violating U.S. sanctions by purchasing Iranian oil, but critics of President Joe Biden’s administration say China has not done enough to enforce the sanctions. It is claimed that
The United States has also increased pressure on China over the past two years for failing to do more to block the shipment of munitions to Russia that supported Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, there is little sign of a decline in shipments.
