Today, Explained - China is winning the Iran war

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

The US and Iran still have not reached a deal to end the war, but one winner is already clear: China. This episode was produced by Miles Bryan, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by David Tatasciore, and hosted by Noel King. US forces patrol the Arabian Sea near the Strait of Hormuz. Handout Photo by the US Navy via Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

King Charles's visit to the U.S. this week is in part a delicate reminder that even America's closest allies are not on board with the war in Iran. No nation can go it alone, the king told the Congress yesterday. But in this unpredictable environment, our alliance cannot rest on past achievements or assume that foundational principles simply endure. Despite the fact that many of America's friends have chosen not to fight in Iran, limiting the number of combatants, the effects of this war are rippling out globally. They're affecting gas prices, food prices, travel, jobs, entire industries. Some analysts and experts have even asked if this is yet another World War. War I, War 11. Oh, two. No, it'll be World War III. Today and today,

explain from Vox, the world is feeling the strain of the war in Iran, but China, in some surprising ways, is benefiting. Want to go electric without sacrificing fun? That's the Volkswagen ID4. All-electric and thoughtfully designed to elevate your modern lifestyle. The Volkswagen ID4 is fun to drive with instant acceleration that makes city streets feel like open roads, plus a refined interior with innovative technology always at your fingertips. The all-electric ID4, you deserve more fun. Visit vw.ca. to learn more. SUVW, German engineered for all. Amazon Presents, Laura versus Fruitflies. Swarming your fruit and terrorizing your kitchen.

These little freaks multiply at a rate that would make a rabbit say, yo. Chill. But Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes, and fly traps. Hey, fruit flies, your baby boom ends here. Save the Everyday with Amazon. This is Today Explained. I'm James Palmer and I'm Deputy Editor of Foreign Policy Magazine. I also write our weekly China Brief newsletter based on my 15 years living in Beijing.

Beautiful. All right. So today we're talking about the war in Iran and China. What does China have to do with America's war in Iran? Well, China's watching this war very closely. China's always been interested in how America fights, going back to the first Gulf War, which caused Beijing to really rethink its military, rethink how far ahead the U.S. was. And one of the things they've noticed this time is just how fast America is burning through its munitions. Before the war, the U.S. had more than 2,000 Patriot missiles on hand. So far, about half of the stockpile has been used. According to experts, this reduction is so severe it has created a near-term risk of the U.S.

running out of ammunition should a future conflict arise in the next few years. Those are looking at where does America go to in terms of allies. who can it draw and who will stand with America when America goes into a really stupid war? Spain has closed its airspace to U.S. planes involved in attacks on Iran. German Chancellor, Friedrich Martz, claims the U.S. has no exit plan and says the U.S. is being humiliated by the Iranian state leadership. And so China wants to know how this will affect any potential conflict with the U.S. in the Asia-Pacific in the future. What is the relationship between Iran and China?

They're communicating. Are they friendly? Yes, they're very friendly. You know, if you go to China, you'll run into Iranians a surprising amount because there's a ton of exchange programs, including, for instance, pilot training. There's an Iranian medical school at the Beijing traditional Chinese medicine university for some reason. So all these ties. And it's very odd because, of course, you know, China is a communist state. And the Iranian regime has regularly murdered communists in the past. And equally, like, at least in theory, Iran is all about. about protecting Muslims and China is the world's greatest persecutor of Muslims, you know, millions of Uyghur, arrested, imprisoned, put in camps, forced into labor. But it's a very practical relationship. You know, they see themselves as having shared interests, both commercial and geopolitical. They see themselves as both opposed to the United States. And in particular, I think China sees Iran as a fellow victim of the current world order.

Okay, so China has its reasons to be united, allied with Iran, And China is watching this war play out very carefully because it is trying to learn a couple of things, including what the U.S. military can and presumably can't do. What is it learning about our military strengths and weaknesses? I would say the main thing they're looking at is really the question of production chains and the ability to replenish munitions, which seems to be even weaker than people thought. And people have been warning about this for many years. They were designed to be essentially craft produce or bespoke produce, like you'd buy them on Etsy or something. They were not designed for mass production.

The primary challenge we see in the research we've done with the U.S. industrial base is that it is not adequately prepared for the security landscape that now exists. In a major regional conflict, such as a U.S. war with China and the Taiwan Straits, the U.S. would exceed in that war the current stockpile. of the Department of Defense. But one of the American characteristics of late has been to take these warnings and write a million think tank pieces about them and not actually do anything to fix it.

And that's in contrast with China. China had a bunch of strategic weaknesses in the 2010s, which it really then went and fixed, like domesticated its own supply chains, looked for new suppliers, all this kind of thing. And while we haven't seen its stress tested yet, seems to be much more potentially capable of mass munitions production than the American system is. So while America has better weapons, China may have the ability to get those weapons out there more.

You think of something like the Germans versus the Americans in World War II. The German tanks, the German planes were in many ways superior, but the Americans were putting 20 tanks on the battlefield for every German one. Industry is a force all of its own. But even the quality of American weapons, I think, is coming into some doubt as a result of the Iran war, because we're seeing that the Iranians, with their dug-in positions, with their preparation, even with their air defense being completely overwhelmed by American power, they've got surprising survivability.

Much more, I think, has survived that American and the Israeli onslaught than first anticipated. Despite all of the hits that the Iranian military has taken, They still do have ballistic missile capabilities. Overnight, at least two ships came under attack in the Strait of Hulmuz. Iranian state media claims Tehran seized the vessels. That's partially because Iran's a big place. It's got a lot of places you can really dig stuff in. But it may also be that America has been overestimating its own capabilities,

even against a country that isn't a peer opponent. Okay, so I hear you saying that China is paying attention to what the U.S. can do militarily because it is thinking, what would we do, what would China do if the US attacks us the way it attacked Iran? Is that what's going on here? I think it's double-sided because on the one hand, China can imagine itself as being the victim of air power, the victim of this overwhelming force. And so it's asking itself like, could the Americans kill our leadership? And the answer to that it's probably not because Chinese air defense is a lot better than Iranian. But it's also looking at it and saying, well, you know, what if we want to take Taiwan? What if we want to use our power and project force across the strait? This is the Taiwan Strait. In recent years, China has sent military aircraft across the strait and towards the island southwest on a near daily basis.

Remember, we're probably talking 3 to 400,000 Chinese troops that would have to land on Taiwan, and they're not swimming there. They've got to get there on boats. Those are extremely vulnerable platforms. Like the Iranians, the Taiwanese have plenty of time to prepare. hair, that they dug in, they know who their opponent is and they're expecting it. And we've seen also that there's this ability to threaten your near abroad, even if you're being beaten by a stronger opponent. So for all of America's power, for all of America's force, it's not able to

force the reopening of the strait. It's not able to keep those waters safe. And so China's thinking, well, what will the Taiwanese be able to do in the strait if we're sending across a million men, how many of those ships are going to be safe and maybe it's less than they thought. Okay, so China imagines itself as the U.S. and it imagines itself as Iran. In that case, it's thinking of Taiwan and what China might do to Taiwan. Let me ask you where the U.S. plugs back in here, because I've been reading that the U.S. has moved an aircraft carrier and expensive missile defense systems out of Asia into the Middle East to kind of cope with Iran. So are we now at this huge disadvantage if China is to go after Taiwan? Not really, because any Taiwan scenario, we get

tons of warning. It requires really amassing material, men, ships in a way that's going to be extremely obvious. And, you know, there's perhaps no part of the planet more closely watched than the Taiwan Strait. So aircraft carriers, mobile assets, so the sort of things you're going to have probably enough warning to move back, and we've got a ton of them in the Asia-Pacific. anyway. It is festooned with American bases. What this is costing America, what moving stuff out of the Asia-Pacific is costing America is mostly political credibility. And the big example of this is THAAD, which is this very expensive, very technologically advanced missile defense system that we put in South Korea in the 2010s. China was really opposed to the deployment, and it punished South Korea very harshly for allowing the deployment of THAAD in South Korean territory. Most notably, there was a complete boycott of the South Korean supermarket chain latte,

which was trying to break into China and was basically driven out of China, as were a bunch of other South Korean businesses. South Korean pop styles were banned from entering the country for a while. According to China's Ministry of Culture website on Tuesday, no Korean stars have been granted permission to perform in China since October. South Korean actor, I Zhonggi, is likely to be banned from the Chinese premiere of his latest film. They really paid a price, and now they see the American. treating them like shit in the way that, you know, Trump has treated all of America's allies like

shit. The U.S. military says it hasn't moved every part of that out and that it's just moved some components, but the damage has been done anyway. The South Korean press has widely reported it as Thad itself being moved out, and the reputational cost is already there. Okay, you said it not me. President Trump treats America's allies like shit, and that raises some interesting questions here about diplomacy. President Trump has not been able to get America's usual allies on board with the war, despite various pleas and whining and whatnot. What does it mean for China that America's allies are like, uh-uh, guys, not this time?

Well, America's entire power projection in the Asia Pacific is very dependent on allies. And any conflict in the Taiwan straight, you're running a supply chain all the way from Australia or from Japan. you're dependent not only upon the big countries or relatively big countries, you're also dependent upon these little island states on the way, where America has complicated historical relationships, but which have traditionally looked to America's security patron. So all of this is dependent on goodwill, and that goodwill falling apart, as a lot of it has been doing,

as Trump has made the US increasingly a pariah state, is going to affect our readiness. All right, so I think someone might be hearing us talk and thinking this war in Iran has been entirely upside for China. It's been great for China and nothing else. Is that the case? Not really. It's more of a lose-lose scenario. So they're getting the best they can out of it,

but the closure of the strait is still a big problem for them, and they've been working hard to try and get a ceasefire. China fills the pain as much as anybody else. So while they're trying to get what they can from the war, they would still really like to see a piece. James Palmer is the deputy editor of Foreign Policy Magazine. When we return, the war in Iran has been surprisingly good for renewable energy. Support for today, explain, comes from Ship Station.

When your company is growing quickly, order fulfillment can make or break your momentum. Ship Station says their intelligence-driven platform helps take that pressure off by bringing order management, rate shopping, warehouse systems, and powerful analytics in tow. one place. You can try Ship Station free for 60 days with full access to all features. No credit card needed. Go to shipstation.com and use code today for 60 days for free. They say 60 days gives you plenty of time to see exactly how much time and money you're saving on every shipment. That's shipstation.com today. Shipstation.com today. Like a boat.

Support for today explained comes from talk psychiatry. If you've been experiencing depression or anxiety and have been stuck on a wait list to see a psychiatrist or you're bouncing between those online mental health sites trying to find medication support, talkiatry would like to help. It's virtual psychiatry that says it fits your life and your insurance. Talkiatry says they're a 100% online.

online psychiatry practice that provides comprehensive evaluations, diagnoses, and ongoing medication management for conditions including ADHD, anxiety, depression, bipolar, OCD, PTSD, insomnia, so much more. Unlike therapy-only apps, psychiatry is psychiatry. That means you're seeing a medical provider who can diagnose mental health conditions and prescribe medication when appropriate. They say you'll be able to meet with an experienced licensed psychiatrist who takes the time to understand what's going on, builds a personalized treatment plan, and can prescribe

medication when it's right for you. And they say you can schedule your first visit in days, not months. You can head to tukhyatry.com slash explain and complete the short assessment to get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's tukhyatry.com slash explain to get matched in minutes. Support for the show comes from Indeed. When you're looking for talent, indeed, sponsored jobs can be just the boost you're looking for.

Indeed says you can save lots of time searching and instead get matched with quality candidates that meet your specific criteria like skills, certification, or location. I'm always looking for people with skills. According to their data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a higher than non-sponsored jobs. You can spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes, less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this can be a job for Indeed

sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit to help get your job, the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com.com slash podcast. You can just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring. Do it the right way with Indeed. You're listening to Today Explained. Akshat Rati is a senior climate reporter for Bloomberg News and author of the book, Climate, capitalism. We called them up because we'd seen stories about the war and the rising oil prices due to the war being great for clean energy. And China makes and uses a lot of energy. So China is the world's largest consumer of energy period. It consumes essentially more of everything. Oil, coal, gas, and of course a bunch of renewables. And China has been thinking about

it's huge energy consumption for a long time because it knows that if somebody wants to attack it, it can just shut down all this fossil fuel that it imports from different places, including, of course, the Strait of Hormuz. And one of the ways it has been dealing with that is trying to make energy at home. It has a bunch of coal, so it depends on coal. But what else does it have? Well, it has a lot of sun and a lot of wind. And so it's been building up the industry to make solar panels and wind turbines and, of course,

then to store that renewable energy in batteries and, of course, use it in electric cars for the last 20 years. And today it is the world's largest manufacturer of all these technologies. And now the rest of the world, which has not been planning as clearly as the Chinese have been planning, have looked at what the Chinese have done and they want more of it. And the world sees now clean energy as an energy security option, just as it used to see fossil fuels as the energy security option. Hmm, okay.

So you said that China has been preparing for a moment like this for a long time, which means China's renewable energy sector has been a boom in. What was it like before the war? What was going on, I don't know, six months ago, a year ago? China has been the world's largest manufacturer of almost all clean energy technologies. Solar panels, wind turbines, lithium ion batteries, electric cars, and even electrolyzers which turn renewable energy into hydrogen.

Now, before the war, the thing that China was probably having the biggest capacity to produce is solar panels. This solar farm covers an area equivalent to the size of the city of Bristol. Panels stretch as far as the eye can see. Two years ago, this was just a desert. We've since installed six million solar panels, two million of them in the space of less than six months. So China can make about one terawatt of solar panels per year. And just to put that in context,

all of the world last year deployed about 650 gigawatts of solar panels. That means there is just in China 35% more capacity than the world currently is. deploying. And the numbers are similarly crazy when it comes to batteries. So China announced that by 2030 it will have enough manufacturing capacity for batteries to meet six terawatt hours of global demand. Currently, the expected demand for 2030s is less than two terawatt hours. So China alone will have enough capacity by 2030 to meet global demand three. times over.

That is incredible. And so, okay, so China is ahead of the game making solar panels, making EVs, expanding its renewable energy capacity. And then it's got all this stuff, you know, being made in factories. I'm imagining it on the loading dock, ready to hit the rest of the world. So the Strait of Hormuz closes, oil prices go up. And then what happens to all that Chinese clean energy that's like sitting on the loading dock? Yeah, it's cheap, it's available and people want it.

And so we saw in March numbers that correlate to what we expected people to do, which is to try and buy these clean tech from China in as much quantity as it can. Petrol price spikes triggered by the war in Iran are boosting used electric vehicle sales across Europe. We've seen a 50% increase in sales of rooftop solar for households. 20% increase in demand for electric vehicle charges. The month of March saw record exports of clean energy technologies from China, about $22 billion worth. And that's sort of like a large number compared to just the previous March figure,

but also compared to February the month earlier. Okay, so this is short term. The war's been going on since February 28th. What do you think the long-term trend is going to show? let's say oil prices six months from now or, you know, back where they were, back at their original prices. You think this keeps going? Well, we should note in the short term, other things have also happened. So in this short term, we have seen countries at least signal that they will use more coal if they have domestic coal available.

And so countries like India and China, which are big coal consumers, will likely consume more coal. But the long term is where you have to start to look at the signals that government are sending because the policies that they set is where the energy future ends up. And we are already seeing some really interesting examples come through. So one that I've been reporting on is in the Philippines. The Philippines imports almost all of its fuel from the Middle East and has little domestic capacity and refining capability. An average Filipino fisherman has seen a 120% increase in fuel.

cost due to the war on Iran. Almost immediately after the war started, within a week or two, the government announced a series of interventions. So the country was on plan to build a bunch of solar panels and utility scale around the country, and they announced that they're going to accelerate that and try and build all of those by the end of April. A massive solar battery project in the zone is set to deliver around-the-clock clean power, marking a major leap in the Philippines's energy transition.

The state pension fund came out with a loan program for anybody who wants to install rooftop solar panels. And of course, they also signal that, hey, coal power plants, if you have to burn more coal to be able to meet the demand because we can't get expensive gas, then please burn more coal. And of course, a lot of the clean energy technologies are going to be supplied from China. Okay. So you know that in the U.S. we have experienced some push and pull on renewable energy in the last, I don't know, five, ten years, right?

The Biden administration was in office, electric vehicle, solar wind, batteries. And folks, solar for all will give us more breathing room and cleaner breathing room. We understood this to be the future. We were moving toward that future. President Trump is elected. He says, uh-uh, he blows it all up. We're getting rid of the falsely named renewables. By the way, they're a joke. They don't work. I wonder, is the war in Iran the subsequent closure of the strait, the subsequent high oil prices?

Is any of that changing the conversation in the United States around, hey, maybe we should go back to what we were doing under Biden? Well, the United States, especially in this period, last 10, 15 years, has also turned up, production of natural gas and oil at record levels. And so it is now the world's largest producer of oil, the largest exporter of natural gas. And so the price shocks that the rest of the world is feeling, the U.S. is not really feeling. Yes, gasoline prices have, you know, gone up about $4 a gallon, but that is really a very

small increase relative to the gas prices that Europeans or Asians are paying. So that hasn't really led to a place where people are in a shock and they want alternatives. That said, there has been a boom in the sale of used electric vehicles in the U.S. I think there is a sense that with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the understanding that there has to be a way to find other sources of energy, that this is like a really good moment, that this war, even though I think many, many people don't want it to have to have, happened, the knock-on effect of people looking differently, nations looking differently or in a more

aggressive way, a renewable energy, is a really good thing. Is that how you would characterize this? I don't know if there's anything really good from a war, even if it's going to really speed up the clean energy transition. But you're right, it just might. We have seen that when the 1970s oil crisis happened, at the time, clean energy wasn't a very important. At the time, clean energy wasn't big deal, but governments really tried to move away from oil as fast as they could. They went down building a lot of nuclear power plants. They started to sell these fuel-efficient vehicles in the US. You know, the Japanese automakers got a real push.

We are likely to see similar trends trying to go away from oil and gas as fast as possible. So we will see more and more countries double down on clean energy purely because it is now the economic choice, and then climate is an added benefit. That was Bloomberg's Akshat Rati. Miles Bryan produced today's show. Amina El Sadi edited. David Tadishore is our engineer and Gabriel Dunedop, check the facts. I'm Noelle King.

It's Today Explained.