How many missiles shot at American forces has Beijing helped Tehran build?

Since January of 2025, the Chinese have sent a flood of sodium perchlorate to Iran. The size and pace of such shipments expanded after the June 2025 Israeli strikes. It has not abated. Even as American forces are coming under fire, Beijing is helping the Iranians in their efforts to sink U.S. ships and kill American servicemen.

Sodium perchlorate is a key precursor chemical that Iran converts into ammonium perchlorate for solid rocket propellant used in its ballistic missiles. It is not a controlled export under Chinese law, but then again, neither are all the chemicals Beijing sends to Mexico to help the cartels make fentanyl.

In January and February of 2025, two Iranian vessels known to be involved in sanctions busting docked at Bandar Abbas. They were bringing sodium perchlorate from China. Together, the two ships carried 1000 tons of the substance. That’s enough to make fuel for roughly 250 medium-range ballistic missiles.

In September and October of 2025, immediately after Iran’s 12-day war with Israel in June 2025, a further 2,000 tons arrived from China to help replenish stockpiles used in that conflict.

From February through April 2026, in the middle of the current war with Iran, at least five more ships left China and delivered sodium perchlorate to Iran. These ships were even larger than those involved previously. They turned their AIS trackers off for portions of the voyage, and some listed false destinations. Analysis shows that the combined cargo on these five vessels contained enough sodium perchlorate to support production of 785 ballistic missiles. That’s enough to support Iran’s observed launch rate of 10-30 missiles for a month.

Understand that none of this is theoretical. None of this concerns some hypothetical future threat. The material China is providing is being made into solid rocket fuel. It is being used in missiles being fired at American bases and ships. Many of these missiles have hit their targets. Americans are dead. Many more are wounded.

At least 13 different American bases have been hit by Iranian missiles. Estimates of the damage caused exceed $800 million.

This is not just happening. This is deliberate. Just as China indirectly kills thousands of Americans each year by facilitating the production of fentanyl, it is now helping Iran kill our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines.

Isaac Kardon, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was blunt in his assessment in discussing Beijing’s decision to send Iran the material it needs to fuel its missiles: “China could have held these vessels at port, imposed an administrative delay, invented a customs hold, any number of bureaucratic tools, but didn’t. That’s a deliberate policy choice.”

The Chinese claim they want to coexist. They pretend to want a normal relationship with the United States in which we cooperate, and both nations benefit. The truth is much darker. Beijing seeks world domination.

In many ways, it has been at war with the United States for years. That conflict just intensified. Americans are dying, and they are being killed by missiles that the Chinese are fueling.

Originally published by AND Magazine