The China-Iran Jigsaw Puzzle

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the primary geopolitical adversary of the United States. And because of this, the U.S. cannot allow Iran to go nuclear.

To say that the U.S. administration has been very active since January 20^th, 2025 is somewhat of an understatement. One might even label the approach as “confetti politics”, as in a child running around a room full of people setting off confetti poppers, and while the air is thick with airborne confetti, some clandestine actions are taking place. I don’t know, maybe that child is helping himself to the dessert table before dinner, or maybe something much more substantial is underway. But when the air clears every few days, we are left swamped and dumbfounded by multiple events, both domestic and international, that seem to have nothing to do with each other. Let’s attempt to connect recent events together like a jigsaw puzzle and create a legible picture.

My hypothesis is that the completed puzzle will have “China” written all over it. With exquisite calligraphy embossed in gold, of course.

A few pieces of note include:

(1) Tariffs: widely cast, then many retracted or scaled back, but the tariff war with China is only getting hotter.

(2) There is a growing realization that U.S. and Western global companies helped to industrialize China by moving a significant portion of their production base there, emptying the manufacturing capability within the U.S. and effectively “de-industrializing” the West. The result is some serious dependence of the U.S. on Chinese-manufactured goods of strategic value.

(3) Western companies, universities, R&D centers, and national laboratories have helped to educate Chinese academics, engineers, high-tech infrastructure, and workforce.

(4) In response to this realization, the U.S. administration put a visa ban in place for students from “sensitive countries.” China just happens to be on the list.

(5) Trump’s recent trip to Gulf states focused on attracting their vast available capital for investments in the U.S. These investments are unlikely to be in real estate, but rather in high-tech and other strategically important manufacturing endeavors.

(6) It is widely acknowledged that the PRC is building up all branches of its military (Air Force, Navy, etc.) at an alarming rate.

(7) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) announced a plan to build a chip manufacturing plant in Texas. Just a data point.

The plan to bring the PRC into the World Bank with the hope that exposure to Western values and benefits will push it towards renouncing communism and into the arms of capitalism might just be off the mark.  Brings to mind the naïve notion of the European Union (some countries within it more than others) deciding that integrating Russia into the western economy will open Putin’s eyes to the benefits of a free society, which would ultimately usher in an era of capitalism and democracy in Russia. Remember how Trump was widely ridiculed when he sounded the alarm in Germany that it was too heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas? Poor simpleton Trump with no experience in international affairs just didn’t know any better, right? Then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine happened, and Europe had to live through a cold winter, with contracted manufacturing due to a sharp jump in energy costs.

A similar story appears to be developing vis-à-vis China. Xi is somehow not interested in giving up power and the Communist ideology. China became very adept at using the West and its democratic values of anti-racism, for example, together with spreading democracy and open societies and borders. They became experts in using competition between large Western companies for markets and cheap labor to force them into lopsided agreements that gave up (transferred) intellectual property. Bottom line: the PRC is taking the West to the cleaners.

The jigsaw puzzle pieces above may well be part of a broader campaign against the West’s rather clear adversary, China.  The tariffs are not only to help American companies to compete economically with the PRC, or to “level the playing field.” This is just one of the means. To paraphrase President Clinton’s campaign slogan (attributed to his advisor James Carville) “it’s NOT the economy, it’s geopolitics, stupid!”

What does it all have to do with Iran? Iran has built a circle of fire with its proxies around Israel. So far, Israel has managed to defeat most of these proxies, but this is irrelevant to this post. Zooming out a bit. Quite a bit. For those who know, think fractal system. On the larger scale of superpowers, China is building up Iran into its own proxy against the U.S. Here are a few of the known jigsaw puzzle pieces that would support this statement:

1. China is buying Iranian oil to subvert the economic sanctions on Iran.
2. The explosion in an Iranian port was started by chemicals used for manufacturing rocket/missile fuel, thought to be delivered by China.
3. China brokered a recent agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Iran is said to be a part of the axis of resistance. But it is not an equal card-carrying partner yet. Because the card that the other members of the resistance carry has “nukes able” written on it as one of their descriptors. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, the Middle East will be destabilized beyond the point of recognition. The U.S. will be forced at a minimum to substantially beef up its armed forces in the region, spreading them thin(ner), to the great benefit of the PRC. The point when the PRC will decide that it can attempt to create a “one Chinese state solution” will be brought nearer, and perhaps even before the economic war on China that Trump initiated will start bearing fruit. In other words, it is absolutely in the U.S. national security interest not to allow China to nuclear-arm its Persian proxy in the Middle East.

Notice that I did not mention Israel at all in any of the above.

Iran breaking out nuclear will have huge ramifications on the global contest of the superpowers. Iran not going nuclear is where the two independent national prerogatives of the U.S. and Israel are in fact identical. The details will have to be worked out, but they must be worked out. Quickly.