The U.S. government is imposing sanctions on “11 people and entities” who have been helping Iran get weapons. Most hail from the People’s Republic of China (Reuters, June 10, 2026).
“Nine of those designated were China- and Hong Kong-based individuals and companies that facilitated the procurement of weapons for Iran’s military, and a Hong Kong-based company operating within Iran’s clandestine banking network, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said in a statement,” the wire service reported.
“Treasury will not tolerate any support of the Iranian military,” says Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The two other sanctioned “people and entities” are based in Iran and Belarus. They were sanctioned by State rather than by Treasury.
Meanwhile, China, which claims to be dedicated to peace, is advising both sides in the Iran war to simmer down. After the U.S. conducted air strikes against Iranian military targets in response to the shooting down of an Apache helicopter, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian explained that “China is deeply concerned.”
The two sides should “remain calm, exercise restraint, stop escalating tensions, take concrete actions to ease tensions…. Facts have proven military means cannot solve any problem and arbitrary use of force will only complicate the issues.”
This lets the U.S. side off the hook, since its use of force to conduct the war is not arbitrary and has, by weakening the Iranian military, partly solved the problem of the Iranian military.
But Lin’s pronouncements do create problems for the Chinese Communist Party and People’s Liberation Army. In order to boost Lin’s credibility, they will have to immediately stop arbitrarily using force against other countries and the Chinese people.
