{"id":76307,"date":"2026-04-21T12:43:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T12:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/76307\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T12:43:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T12:43:10","slug":"iran-ship-seized-by-us-shows-beijing-helping-tehran-ex-un-envoy-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/76307\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran Ship Seized by US Shows Beijing Helping Tehran, Ex-UN Envoy Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chinese links to the\u00a0Iranian-flagged tanker seized by the U.S. show\u00a0how\u00a0Beijing\u00a0is\u00a0helping\u00a0Tehran, former U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley has said, amid speculation that the vessel\u2019s cargo\u00a0contained\u00a0materials\u00a0that can be\u00a0used for missiles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Haley<\/a>, former U.S. envoy to the United Nations,\u00a0said that the\u00a0Touska, which was captured\u00a0on Sunday near the Iranian port of Chabahar,\u00a0was “headed from China<\/a> to Iran and is linked to chemical shipments for missiles.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

The post on X<\/a> by the 2024 Republican primary candidate\u00a0added this was “another reminder that China is helping prop up Iran\u2019s regime.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

When asked whether the Touska was carrying rocket fuel precursors from China, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Tuesday: “As far as I know, it is a foreign-flagged container ship.”<\/p>\n

“China opposes any malicious association and hyping up the issue,” he added.<\/p>\n

There’s\u00a0no confirmed evidence China has provided military support to Iran in the war launched by the U.S. and Israel.\u00a0President Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0has said\u00a0Beijing committed not to supply Tehran with weapons after reports\u00a0it was\u00a0looking to sell it shoulder-fired air\u00a0defense\u00a0systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

However, Haley’s comments follow\u00a0initial assessments from security sources that the vessel U.S.\u00a0Marines\u00a0boarded Sunday<\/a> in the Gulf of Oman was likely to be carrying dual-use items after a voyage from Asia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sources cited\u00a0by Reuters\u00a0did not specify further but U.S. Central Command has listed \u200cmetals, pipes and electronic components as among goods that \u2060could have a military as well as an industrial use.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Touska\u00a0Visited Chinese Ports\u00a0<\/p>\n

Haley\u2019s claims also come amid questions about the visits to Chinese\u00a0ports by<\/a> the container ship which is part of the state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) group. \u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2019, the U.S. imposed sanctions on IRISL,\u00a0whose\u00a0ships are under the control of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC),\u00a0for\u00a0transporting\u00a0items for Iran\u2019s ballistic missile program.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was seized on Sunday for breaking a\u00a0naval blockade of Iranian ports\u00a0announced by Trump,\u00a0pending\u00a0a\u00a0deal between the U.S. and Iran\u00a0over Tehran unblocking the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

Ship tracking data analyzed by Newsweek<\/a> found that the vessel had left\u00a0Iranian waters on February 22 via the port of Shahid Rajaee. It\u00a0transited the Strait of Malacca in early March\u00a0before calling\u00a0at Zhuhai port in southern China on March 9.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Washington Post\u00a0had previously reported\u00a0that\u00a0Zhuhai port was a location where Iran secures precursors for rocket fuel used in its ballistic missiles.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Satellite imagery showed the vessel at China\u2019s Taicang port, north of Shanghai, on March 25 and arriving at China’s southern\u00a0Gaolan\u00a0port on March 29-30.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The vessel loaded containers in\u00a0Gaolan\u00a0then\u00a0stopped\u00a0around the Port Klang anchorage in Malaysia on April 11-12, according to\u00a0SynMax\u00a0analysis\u00a0cited by Reuters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

China\u00a0is a key trading partner for Iran and although it has insisted it has played no role in the war started by Trump,\u00a0a report\u00a0this month\u00a0by the Jamestown\u00a0Institute\u00a0said that\u00a0Iran\u2019s drone campaign\u00a0in March\u00a0was powered by thousands of Chinese-made components.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some of these were routed through shell companies selling\u00a0e-cigarettes, others\u00a0as refrigeration units to avoid detection,\u00a0according to the think tank.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Western enforcement tools built for big defense contractors are powerless against an ecosystem of small enterprises that can dissolve within weeks of being sanctioned and\u00a0reconstituted\u00a0under a new legal entity,” the think tank\u00a0said on X\u00a0on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese links to the\u00a0Iranian-flagged tanker seized by the U.S. show\u00a0how\u00a0Beijing\u00a0is\u00a0helping\u00a0Tehran, former U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley has said, amid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[262,38,34,196,3070,101,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-76307","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tehran","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-iran-war","12":"tag-nikki-haley","13":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","14":"tag-tehran"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116442759514870038","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}