The big winner in Operation Epic Fury — which, before the ceasefire, just about decimated (in the literal sense) the Islamic Republic’s military and civilian leadership, blockaded its ports, and virtually destroyed its navy and air force — is China.
China? Sure, just ask the mainstream media, where “China is winning the Iran War” is the new king of press narratives. It’s just that a Monday report in the New York Times reveals, perhaps inadvertently, that the king sits on a throne of lies.
Before we get to the Times story, let’s look at The Narrative™ the press basically steeps your friends and neighbors in.
If you want to know what the establishment thinks about foreign affairs, just read Foreign Affairs. Here’s the establishment-think, courtesy of Andrew P. Miller and Michael Clark: “The Iran War Is a Win for China.”
The Guardian: “Who can claim victory if Iran ceasefire holds? An early winner is China.“
Axios: “Behind the Curtain: China wins by watching.”
The Associated Press tied the war to climate change because, of course, it did: “Iran war’s global energy crisis sharpens China’s advantage in clean tech.”
I suppose it’s no surprise that Germany’s mainstream Deutsche Welle peddles the same garbage: “Why China is winning the Iran war.” And India’s Times Now went with “Why China May Be the Quiet Winner of the Iran War.”
Al Jazeera’s Erin Hale* played up the cultural angle: “How China is gaining from Iran war by showing it is different from U.S.” Well, yes, China is different from the U.S. Beijing is happy to tolerate Tehran’s murderous regime in exchange for discounted oil, and we aren’t. But I digress.
And I could go on, but at this point, I can almost hear you wishing me to get on with it.
*Why in the actual hell would a Western woman work for an Islamic propaganda outfit like Al Jazeera? Never mind, don’t answer that — I already know.
Wow, that’s all pretty bad, huh? China must be winning so hard that they’re getting tired of all the winning over there.
Yeah, no.
Pundits can spin the truth with all the fancy analysis, but the numbers tell a different story.
Reporting from Beijing, the NYT’s Keith Bradsher notes that “rising oil and natural gas prices from the war in Iran are beginning to weigh on the Chinese economy, further slowing already anemic consumer spending and hurting critical export sectors.”
Car sales fell in March and “plunged” in April, according to Bradsher, and in one underreported story, “thousands of toy factory workers protested last week after their employer collapsed under rising plastic costs and ongoing tariffs in the United States.”
More:
For many weeks, China had appeared to weather the fallout from the war, a view reinforced by fairly strong economic data through March. But with the war in its ninth week with no clear end, cracks are beginning to show.
“The economy is decelerating,” said Alicia García-Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, a French financial firm. China may struggle to meet this year’s growth target of 4.5 percent or more, she added.
The funny part is that NYT editors kept Brasher’s report to a bare minimum — just 222 words, by my count — lest readers notice that China is hurting.
Sure, nobody likes paying four bucks for gas, although $5 gas under Joe Biden would be $5.75 in today’s dollars. But as Robin Brooks noted this weekend on Substack, “the current physical shortage of oil was entirely predictable and got priced long ago.”
In other words, things are about as bad as they’re going to get (knock on wood), and as things are, China is hurting far more than the U.S.
Meanwhile, Trump holds the ultimate trump card (sorry): the unrealized threat to destroy the Islamic Republic’s domestic electrical and energy export infrastructure. I mean, if the regime really wants to operate as 7th-century theocrats, that would do the trick. And the men and women of CENTCOM — not to forget the IDF — are just rarin’ to go.
But somehow, rest assured, that means China is winning.
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