China close to giving Iran a ship-killer as US carriers close in

As US carriers steam toward Iran, China’s CM-302 missile offer could turn a faltering energy-rich partner into a sharper spear in a widening great-power contest over power, data and energy.

Reuters recently reported that Iran is close to finalizing a deal to buy Chinese-made CM-302 supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, according to six people familiar with the talks, a move that would sharpen tensions as the US masses naval forces near Iran amid warnings of possible strikes.

The negotiations, underway for at least two years and accelerated after last June’s 12-day Israel-Iran war, have involved senior Iranian military and government officials, including a previously unreported visit to China by Deputy Defense Minister Massoud Oraei.

The size, price and delivery schedule remain unclear, and China said it was not aware of the talks, while the US declined to comment directly as President Donald Trump set a deadline for a nuclear deal.

The prospective sale would deepen China-Iran military ties, potentially defy reimposed UN sanctions, and come as US carriers, including the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R. Ford, move into striking distance.

According to the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA), the CM-302 is the export version of the YJ-12 anti-ship missile, which was designed to be launched from H-6K strategic bombers.

It says that the CM-302 is armed with a 500-kilogram warhead, can reach Mach 3, and has a range of 400-460 kilometers, depending on the variant and launch platform – either sea, air or land launchers.

MDAA says the CM-302 uses a combination of inertial and satellite guidance and can perform evasive maneuvers, complicating interception. It mentions that these capabilities – supersonic flight and evasive maneuvers – make it well-suited for anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) roles against high-value naval targets such as aircraft carriers.

Such a capability could provide a boost to Iran’s anti-ship missile arsenal, whose performance with its Houthi proxies may leave much to be desired.

In an April 2025 US Naval Institute (USNI) News article, Heather Mongilio notes that during Operation Rough Rider, the Houthis launched multiple strikes against the USS Harry S Truman carrier strike group (CSG); none of the ships sustained damage from the Houthis’ weaponry.

As noted by Fabian Hinz in a January 2024 article for the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Iran has supplied the Houthis with multiple types of subsonic and ballistic anti-ship missiles and possibly supplies them with intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), nominally civilian vessels, and possibly coastal radar networks.

Still, Hinz says that the Houthis lack advanced ISR assets such as satellites and long-range maritime patrol aircraft, which limits their targeting capabilities against moving naval targets.

Aside from limited targeting capabilities, Jonathan Ruhe and Ari Cicurel argue in a Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) report that Iran’s anti-ship missile capability, largely based on cruise missiles such as Noor, Ghader, Ghadir and Abu Mahdi, remains limited and vulnerable despite its growing inventory.

They stress that Iran’s launch capacity is constrained by a finite number of vulnerable mobile and fixed launchers, creating chokepoints that can be targeted to suppress salvos, and that despite the detection challenges posed by low-altitude flight, Iran’s overall system remains vulnerable to interception and preemption because of these structural and operational weaknesses.

Against that backdrop, China’s CM-302 could provide a substantial boost to Iran’s anti-ship missile capabilities, as Can Kasapoglu writes in a September 2025 Hudson Institute report, suggesting Iran could reverse-engineer the system based on the precedent of the C-802.

Kasapoğlu further notes that China has already moved to help rebuild Iran’s depleted missile deterrent, supplying 1,000 tons of sodium perchlorate in February 2025—an ingredient for solid rocket fuel—and could extend that support to microprocessors and guidance systems.

On the ISR front, Kasapoglu says China’s Chang Guang Satellite Technology has been providing intelligence to the Houthis to enable attacks on US commercial shipping, and that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has cultivated ties with both Chang Guang and MinoSpace Technology to secure support for space-based ISR operations.

But what does China get in return for all its alleged assistance to Iran? Kasapoglu notes that the Houthis have spared Chinese ships in the Red Sea from their attacks and that the Houthis may have provided China with real-time data about the performance of US missiles and drones – useful in a US-China confrontation in the Pacific.

Another possible motivation for China’s assistance to Iran is that China may want to secure its energy supply with Iran in the wake of the January 2026 US operation in Venezuela that led to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

According to a January 2026 report by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), Venezuelan oil makes up about 4% to 4.5% of China’s seaborne oil imports. However, disrupting the flow of Iranian energy shipments could change the equation. Reuters reported in January 2026 that Iranian oil accounted for 13.4% of China’s seaborne oil imports last year.

Losing Iran and Venezuela as energy suppliers could enable the US to land multiple blows on China in their superpower rivalry. As pointed out by Ng Weng Hoong in a Eurasia Review article this month, China’s loss of access to Venezuelan oil at heavily discounted prices could see it lose US$4.3 billion in savings, which may weigh on its indebted economy as it is caught up in a costly trade war with the US. Ng adds that the loss of a strategic resource such as cheap Venezuelan oil could also complicate China’s war planning in the Pacific.

While he points out that it is possible for China to rely on alternative suppliers, these alternative suppliers are mainly politically unstable countries in the Middle East and Africa, and war-stricken Russia, all of which are unreliable.

In contrast, he says that the US is in a comfortable position as the world’s leading oil producer and has the advantage of being able to securely import oil from neighboring reliable producers such as Canada and Mexico – an advantage in a protracted conflict. As for China, Ng says, China’s energy supply lines run through international shipping routes that are open and vulnerable to disruption.

In that light, the CM-302 sale would be less a simple weapons purchase than a strategic transaction that helps Iran offset the exposed weaknesses of its current missile force while giving China leverage, data and a stronger hand in protecting a key energy partner.

Even if the sale stalls, it highlights how missiles, ISR and energy supply lines are becoming fused into a single strategic contest that will shape both Gulf flashpoints and any wider US-China confrontation.