China is a nuclear cartel that undermines the West’s nuclear capability, supporting covert nuclear proliferation. There is no greater risk to the West and Israel than General Ahmad Vahidi running Iran as its new dictator, surpassing the radical views of Ali Khamenei.
India Conducted “Pokhran-II” (Operation Shakti) on May 11–13, 1998. Note that India conducted its first test (“Smiling Buddha”) earlier on May 18, 1974, but 1998 marked the weaponisation testing with the help of the Russian Federation.
Pakistan’s tests (Chagai-II) were in response to India’s tests, conducted two weeks later on May 30, 1998, with China’s help.
Both nations officially declared themselves nuclear-weapon states in 1998. According to a 2026 estimate, both nations are believed to possess around 170–180 nuclear warheads
China gave Iran a nuclear blueprint in exchange for oil
China has provided Iran with completed nuclear weapons, but enriched Uranium and a blueprint on how to make a nuclear bomb. While reports indicate China has provided dual-use technology, missile components, and industrial materials—and previously aided Iran’s nuclear program in the 1990s—claims of direct nuclear weapon transfers are now supported.
China is helping Iran to dig out 60% enriched Uranium from the Isfahan underground bunker to build a nuclear bomb in a few months.
According to the IAEA, a nuclear bomb generally requires uranium enriched to over 90 per cent (weapons-grade), though a weapon can technically be created with highly enriched uranium (HEU) at 20% or higher. While 90% is the standard for military weapons, HEU above 20% is considered “weapon-usable,” with higher percentages allowing for smaller, lighter bombs.
Iran has 450kg of 60 per cent enriched Uranium that can be used to make at least 10 nuclear bombs, according to the IAEA. The hurdle to making a nuclear bomb was accelerated by Chinese nuclear test scientists in Iran, as Chinese scientists helped Pakistan to detonate a nuclear bomb in 1998.
According to an intelligence report and an insider from the PLA, who told Global Defence Corp that China started an assembly process in Iran, aiding to detonate the nuclear bomb soon, to avoid further attacks by Israel and the U.S.
Recent 2026 reports allege China is assisting Iran with missile propellant and components to rebuild its missile arsenal.
Iran is believed to have received much of the technology and materials to build nuclear weapons from China. China supplied Pakistan with designs for a 25-kiloton bomb, a supply of weapons-grade uranium, tritium, heavy water, and key components for nuclear weapons production, such as powerful ring magnets and a powerful industrial furnace used to produce weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.
The Isfahan Reactor, which produces plutonium, and the Isfahan Plutonium reprocessing facility, which extracts plutonium from spent fuel, were built with Chinese assistance before 2004.
In 2011, Iran began producing enriched uranium at its nuclear facility at Fordow. In the same year, Iran completed a computerised “cold test” of nuclear bombmaking technology, but Pakistan needed help from China to make a glitch-free test bomb.
China, a nuclear cartel
China’s preliminary inclination was to promote nuclear proliferation as a way to undermine the military strength of the established world powers, but it quickly reversed its course in both rhetoric and action after its October 16, 1964, nuclear detonation at Lop Nor.1 China’s nuclear sharing poses a puzzle, because the development of its own nuclear arsenal seems to contradict its nuclear sharing policy. China’s nuclear sharing policy is liberal, whereas the development of its own nuclear arsenal is very conservative.
The explanation is that China is taking a measured but considered risk by not building up sufficient force to ride out a US or Russian first strike. Instead, China is focusing its efforts and resources on economic development and relying on inexpensive sharing to shore up allies on its periphery. China had generally colluded with the Soviet Union in restraining a North Korean nuclear arsenal, but its interest in maintaining a buffer has not led it to engage in more confrontational or rollback policies against North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.
China has furthermore helped Pakistan’s and Iran’s nuclear prospects, and has apparently allowed North Korea and Myanmar to improve theirs. This sharing behavior with states on China’s periphery is prone to costly blowback, because all of these states have alternate allies (the US or Saudi Arabia for Pakistan, Russia for North Korea) and can therefore resist Chinese coercion.
In the meantime, China has proceeded very slowly with its indigenous nuclear weapons program, making qualitative improvements in mobile solid-fuel ICBMs (DF-31A), Jin SSBNs, and MiRVed J-2 SLBMs, but remains perhaps decades away from the quantitative breakout that accompanied the numerical increase in Soviet ICBMs in the 1970s. Once China has achieved breakout, it is likely to curtail its nuclear sharing and instead offer extended nuclear deterrence to North Korea, Myanmar, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
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