On Sunday, while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One while returning from Ireland, President Trump indicated that China may be spying on the United States. There can be little doubt that they are. That's what geopolitical rivals do: they spy on one another, and you'd better believe that we're spying on China, too. If we aren't, we should be. This is a game that goes back thousands of years, and will continue as long as there are people and governments.
But in this specific case, there are indications that China may be providing Iran with satellite intelligence, which aids Iran in targeting American troops, installations, and ships.
President Donald Trump said Sunday that China "spies on us" just as "we spy on them," following a report that Chinese entities provided Iran with satellite imagery before a deadly missile attack that killed three U.S. troops.
While speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump was asked about a Wall Street Journal report that Chinese entities allegedly supplied Iran with high-resolution satellite imagery of Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan before Tehran's July 17 missile attack.
"They basically do what we do," Trump said.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal provided an account on just this issue.
Before Iran carried out its attack that killed three U.S. troops in July, Tehran acquired high-resolution satellite images of the base in Jordan from Chinese entities, according to U.S. officials familiar with details of the incident.
It is the clearest evidence so far that Chinese support for Iran during the war has had lethal consequences for U.S. forces, according to the officials, who say the U.S. has connected the imagery to the attack.
The U.S. officials declined to identify the Chinese entities that supplied the imagery to Iran and didn’t allege direct involvement by Beijing. Tehran procured the images both before and after the attack.
But the finding could deepen U.S.-China tensions ahead of the planned summit between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Sept. 24, after months of frustration with Beijing’s rejection of U.S. warnings about Chinese companies providing imagery to Iran.
China has been receiving a significant portion of its imported oil from Iran, with its pre-war average being around 900,000 barrels per day, making up between five and 10 percent of its oil supply. The ongoing blockade of Iranian shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, most notably out of the primary Iranian outlet on Kharg Island, has largely dried up that portion of China's oil, and Beijing has to be feeling that pinch. Gas prices are rising; granted, in China, prices are largely set by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and aren't as reactive to market forces like supply and demand as they are in free-market economies, but the laws of economics cannot be completely overridden, even by communist governments.
The question then becomes, what can we do about China's supplying Iran with this intelligence? The answer, sadly, is "not much," and the president seems to understand that.
Asked whether he planned to raise the issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping when he visits the U.S., Trump said Xi has "behaved reasonably well," and that "we behave reasonably well."
"You know what they say? That China spies on us. I say you're right, and we spy on them, too," Trump said.
That's true. The status quo will probably stand. The most the United States could do in this case is to send the diplomatic equivalent of the famous sternly worded letter to China, which would immediately be round-filed by the CCP. China will go on spying on us and, likely, providing intel to Iran. The best thing the USA can do at this point, since we are already in this thing, is to try to bring it to an end and hope for the ideal outcome, which would be the defenestration of the mullahs and a civilized government taking over in Tehran.