No One Wants China’s Junk Weapons! Satellite System Paralyzed! Missiles, Carriers, Jets Blinded!

Forty-two warships sunk in three days. Fifty-two missiles fired at USS Lincoln. All intercepted. Iran's military has lost all fighting capability. No one wants China's junk weapons anymore. China's Beidou satellite system paralyzed. Chinese missiles, carriers, jets blinded. Ships in Hormuz lose navigation. Iran's collapse triggers panic in Zhongnanhai. Xi Jinping speeds up construction of massive bunkers. Xi Jinping's Achilles heel exposed this is what he fears most. Why do top CCP leaders hold such contemptuous views of Americans? Welcome to today's episode of Decoding China. Everything you need to understand the latest developments is right here. Forty-two warships sunk in three days. Fifty-two missiles fired at USS Lincoln. All intercepted. Iran's military has lost all fighting capability. No one wants China's junk weapons anymore. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently confirmed that an American submarine fired a MK-48 heavyweight torpedo, sinking the Iranian frigate Iris Dina in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sri Lanka. The Iris Dina, commissioned in 2021, was one of Iran's more modern warships, armed with heavy guns, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles, torpedoes, and a helicopter pad. Regional reports indicate about 180 crew were aboard, with at least 80 killed in the strike. The losses did not stop there. Another advanced Iranian warship, the Shaheed Sayyad Shirazi, was also attacked and later sank. The ship was named after Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad. Reports also indicate that two Iranian frigates and a Kilo-class submarine stationed at a naval base were destroyed in the initial strikes. Some military analysts now believe that Iran's navy has been effectively crippled after these losses. In the air, events unfolded just as rapidly. An Israeli F-35I stealth fighter shot down an Iranian Yak-130 aircraft. The Yak-130 is a trainer combat aircraft designed by Russia. Iran had only received its first unit in 2023 as part of a broader modernization plan that also included the acquisition of Su-35 fighter jets and Mi-28 attack helicopters. Meanwhile, the U.S. military introduced a new weapon during the campaign known as Operation Epic Fury. U.S. Central Command confirmed that long-range precision strike missiles, the successor to the ATAC-MS system, were used in combat for the first time. The missiles have a range exceeding 499 kilometers and can be launched from HIMARS systems. Because of their smaller size, launch platforms can carry twice the number of missiles, enabling deep precision strikes against targets far inside enemy territory. These strikes destroyed multiple missile silos buried deep within Iran's interior. Although Iran had launched more than 500 ballistic missiles during the conflict, many of its launch sites were eliminated, sharply reducing its ability to continue attacks. According to General Dan Cain, the number of Iranian ballistic missile launches has dropped by 86% compared with the first day of the war, while suicide drone launches have fallen by 73%. The conflict has also exposed severe weaknesses in the military systems supplied to Iran by China. Beijing had long claimed that radar systems such as YLC-8B and JY-26 were capable of detecting stealth aircraft like the F-22, F-35, and B-2. Yet during the actual campaign, U.S. and Israeli aircraft operated in Iranian airspace with virtually no effective interception, demonstrating that the so-called anti-stealth radars failed to deliver in real combat. Another striking example came during Iran's attempted strike on the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group. Iran launched 52 anti-ship missiles in a single salvo. Iranian and Chinese media quickly claimed that four missiles had hit the aircraft carrier, even circulating AI-generated videos purporting to show successful strikes. However, the reports were soon disproven. According to U.S. officials, an E-2D Hawkeye early warning aircraft detected the missiles during their boost phase. Destroyers in the carrier strike group, including Arleigh Burke-class ships, then activated the Aegis air defense system. In just eight minutes, all 52 incoming missiles were intercepted and destroyed. The result was devastating for the reputation of the weapons that China had supplied to Iran. The much-publicized carrier killer, anti-ship missiles, failed to produce any battlefield result. Along with them, the carefully crafted image of Chinese military capability sank into the waters of the Persian Gulf. The gap between Chinese weapons technology and actual U.S. military power appears not only unbridgeable, but increasingly obvious. Beyond the battlefield, the crisis has also shattered one of Beijing's key diplomatic narratives. In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party had proudly presented its mediation between Iran and Saudi Arabia. However, when Iran began launching attacks against neighboring countries, including Saudi Arabia, that diplomatic narrative collapsed overnight. If Riyadh now allows the United States to use its military bases in operations against Iran, the agreement Beijing once celebrated would be exposed as strategically meaningless. The consequences extend further. China's energy security has been hit hard. For years, Beijing relied heavily on discounted sanction-bypassing Iranian oil. With Tehran's system collapsing, this supply channel has effectively disappeared. This development also deals a major blow to China's strategy of internationalizing the Renminbi. Beijing had hoped to promote oil transactions settled in Yuan as a challenge to the dominance of the U.S. dollar. With Iranian oil flows disrupted, the foundation of that strategy has been severely weakened. Another pillar of Chinese foreign policy has also been struck. The Belt and Road Initiative. For more than a decade, Iran served as a strategic hub, linking China to the Middle East and Europe. With the sudden destabilization of Iran, this crucial corridor for China's westward expansion has been abruptly severed. More importantly, the crisis has revealed the true nature of the so-called strategic partnerships that China promotes around the world. These relationships are not genuine military alliances and contain no mutual defense guarantees. When crises erupt, Beijing is neither able nor willing to defend its partners. This disillusionment marks the decline of China's global influence. China's Beidou satellite system paralyzed. Chinese missiles, carriers, jets blinded. Ships in Hormuz lose navigation. In the U.S.-Iran conflict, a serious problem emerged in the Strait of Hormuz. China's Beidou navigation system was no longer operating reliably. Warning indicators lit up across the instruments of multiple vessels as receivers suddenly failed to detect any satellite signals. Some Chinese merchant ships were forced to slow down or drift because they could no longer determine their precise position. In a conflict zone where drones and missiles could appear at any moment, losing navigation is not a minor technical issue. It becomes a direct security risk. In principle, Beidou and the U.S. GPS system operate in the same way. Satellites orbiting more than 20,000 kilometers above Earth continuously transmit radio signals to the planet. By the time these signals reach receivers on the ground, however, they are extremely weak. In an electronic warfare environment, an adversary does not need to break complex encryption. High-powered jamming equipment transmitting noise on the same frequency can easily overwhelm the signal. One feature frequently promoted by the Beidou system is its short message communication capability. In civilian situations, this can be useful for emergency communication in remote areas such as deserts or open seas. But in wartime, transmitting radio signals can become extremely dangerous. Electronic intelligence platforms such as the U.S. Navy's EP-3E reconnaissance aircraft can quickly intercept and geolocate signal emissions. Once a transmitter's position is identified, weapons designed to track electromagnetic radiation can lock onto the source. Within seconds, a unit, vessel, or vehicle that transmitted a signal could become the target of a precision strike. Another weakness lies in the receivers themselves. Many Beidou receivers sold in China rely on low-cost civilian chips in order to reduce costs. These devices often use a single antenna and lack advanced anti-jamming algorithms. Under battlefield-level electromagnetic suppression, they can fail almost immediately. Developing and mass-producing comparable anti-jamming receivers remains a challenge for China due to limitations in semiconductor manufacturing, core algorithms, and precision components. If satellite signals were disrupted across a wide area, the consequences would extend across the entire military system. China's anti-ship ballistic missiles, such as the DF-21D and DF-26, rely on satellite navigation updates during midcourse flight in order to strike moving targets. Without those updates, their accuracy could drop sharply. Major platforms including the Type 055 destroyer, the Type 094 submarine, and the J-20 fighter also depend heavily on satellite navigation to maintain situational awareness and coordinated operations. If signals disappear, coordination across forces could deteriorate rapidly. Command networks such as the PLA's C4ISR system also rely on satellite timing signals to synchronize communications and data exchange. Without accurate timing, command and control can quickly fall into disorder. Meanwhile, the United States and its allies are building layered navigation resilience. In addition to GPS, they employ low-Earth orbit constellations, such as SpaceX's Starlink, to provide additional communications and timing capabilities. Thousands of interconnected satellites form a network that is far more difficult to disrupt. If satellite navigation were disrupted across major sea lanes, the consequences would extend beyond the battlefield. More than 90 percent of China's import and export trade depends on maritime shipping. Heavy GNSS interference in strategic choke points such as the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Malacca, or the Taiwan Strait could make it difficult for vessels to maintain accurate navigation, increasing the risk of collisions and supply chain disruption. Financial systems, power grids, and communication networks also rely on GNSS timing signals. A large-scale failure could ripple through the broader economy. The incident in the Strait of Hormuz therefore should not be seen as a minor technical malfunction. It exposes a reality that propaganda often obscures. Beidou still faces significant vulnerabilities when confronted with real electronic warfare conditions. For the Chinese Communist Party, this reflects a familiar contradiction. The propaganda system constantly promotes narratives of technological breakthroughs, yet real-world testing quickly exposes gaps in the underlying technology chain, from chips and algorithms to end-user equipment. A system built on propaganda and information control can manufacture the image of a technological superpower. But under genuine technological competition, those weaknesses tend to surface rapidly. In the long run, confidence in any national technology will not depend on slogans. It will depend on whether that technology can actually perform under the harshest real-world conditions. Iran's collapse triggers panic in Zhongnanhai. Xi Jinping speeds up construction of massive bunkers. On March 5, Chinese democracy activist Liu Min, who is currently living in the United States, revealed that residents in Beijing had sent him information saying that construction in the West Mountain, Shishan area of Beijing has been continuing around the clock. Sources in Beijing say the construction actually began in mid-2024 and has recently accelerated significantly. After Iran's supreme leader was assassinated during the large-scale military operation carried out by the United States and Israel, rumors began circulating in Beijing that Xi Jinping is speeding up the construction of underground bunkers and command centers to guard against a potential decapitation strike. Earlier this year, the Financial Times published satellite images showing a massive construction site located about 30 kilometers southwest of Beijing, covering roughly 1,500 acres. Several U.S. officials confirmed that the People's Liberation Army, PLA, is building an enormous underground bunker complex there. Recent developments in Iran have made the issue even more sensitive. After the United States and Israel launched a large-scale military operation against Iran, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi declared that the open killing of a sovereign nation's leader by the United States and Israel was unacceptable. However, public reactions inside China were very different. Chinese scholar Gu Kai criticized people who praised the U.S. and Israel for targeting senior Iranian military leaders, calling such views misguided. But his remarks immediately triggered a backlash online. Tens of thousands of comments argued that the ancient military principle—capture the king to defeat the army—remains a fundamental strategy in warfare. Following the military campaign, U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both called on the Iranian people to seize the moment and overthrow the current regime. Trump stated that U.S. military operations in Iran had far exceeded expectations. He urged the Iranian armed forces to surrender, saying clearly, it's time for the armed forces to stand with the Iranian people. Trump also encouraged Iranian diplomats around the world to seek asylum, adding that the Iranian people now finally have a chance to take their country back. At the same time, according to the New York Post, Kurdish opposition groups inside Iran have set aside long-standing differences to form a new military and political alliance. The alliance reportedly plans to launch a large-scale uprising in western Iran, establish an autonomous region, and coordinate efforts to overthrow the government in Tehran. For decades, the Tehran government has been accused of suppressing Kurdish culture. Former Iranian crown prince Reza Pahlavi, who is living in exile in the United States, declared that the decisive moment has arrived. He called on the global Iranian diaspora to intensify efforts to gain international support for removing the current regime. Pahlavi also proposed forming a transitional government, holding a referendum to draft a new constitution, and eventually organizing free elections. Meanwhile, associate professor Cheng Chin-Mo of the University of Hong Kong, Taiwan, stated that the Iranian regime has entered its final stage. He emphasized that a He explained that for 48 years, Iran's theocratic regime has controlled virtually all national resources while pouring massive funds into military spending and nuclear development. It has also supported militant groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. These policies have severely strained Iran's economy and contributed to widespread protests over the past year. Comparing the situation with China, Cheng Chin-Mo said the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party prioritizes political security above all else, while economic issues are increasingly pushed aside. He argued that China's development model, based on export-oriented strategic industries combined with weak legal protection for foreign investment, cannot be sustained in the long term. At the recent National People's Congress, China set its 2026 GDP growth target at 4.5 to 5 percent, the lowest level since 1991. Yet while economic growth targets have been lowered, military spending still increased by 7 percent, with a significant portion of the military budget reportedly hidden within other government departments. According to Cheng Chin-Mo, this indicates that the CCP's militaristic strategy has not changed. Under economic pressure, the regime may attempt to divert domestic attention through external conflicts, such as escalating tensions in the South China Sea or the Taiwan Strait. After the assassination of Iran's supreme leader, insiders revealed that senior CCP officials began holding frequent meetings to assess risks, even discussing lessons from the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, the threat facing the system may not come only from outside. Professor Feng Chongyi of the University of Technology, Sydney, believes that the conditions for a political upheaval in China may actually be more mature than those in Iran. He said that over the years, Chinese citizens' awareness of human rights and constitutional governance has grown significantly. If Xi Jinping were removed, many military officers could quickly switch sides in order to protect their own lives. Political commentator Du Cheng said that under such circumstances, even if Xi Jinping possesses a nuclear bunker beneath Beijing, the anger of the people around him could become an even greater threat that is far harder to defend against. History has repeatedly shown that many unjust rulers have ultimately been overthrown in exactly this way. Xi Jinping's Achilles heel exposed this is what he fears most. On the afternoon of March 7, Xi Jinping attended the plenary meeting of the Delegation of the People's Liberation Army, PLA, and the People's Armed Police at the National People's Congress. During his speech at the meeting, one sentence was repeatedly cited by numerous official Chinese Communist Party media outlets, as well as the regime's overseas propaganda system. There must absolutely be no one in the military who harbors divided loyalties toward the Party. In previous speeches, Xi Jinping typically used a different formulation. He often stated that the gun must always remain in the hands of those who are loyal and reliable to the Party. This time, however, the wording changed. Instead of emphasizing loyal and reliable, he stressed the danger of divided loyalties. That shift reveals Xi Jinping's real state of mind. He believes that there are people inside the military who are not truly on his side, yet he does not know who they are or how many of them exist. That uncertainty has become a major source of anxiety at the core of his power. Recent international developments have directly shaken authoritarian regimes. The U.S. government arrested Nicolas Maduro and his wife, while the United States and Israel carried out a joint decapitation strike against Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. These operations demonstrated that authoritarian rulers and their inner circles can become targets of highly precise military strikes. Shortly before that, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, released a video encouraging individuals inside authoritarian systems to cooperate. The video contained lines such as, The fate of the world is in your hands, and I cannot let these madmen shape the future of my The video spread rapidly among Chinese communities both inside and outside China. Not long afterward, the real-world answer appeared. With assistance from someone close to Khamenei, 30 bunker-busting bombs were dropped with precision onto his compound, striking the main building and surrounding structures. The operation revealed a very different model of warfare from traditional conflicts. The target was not cities or civilian populations, but specific centers of power and the individuals who controlled them. At the same time, the event sent a direct signal to senior Chinese Communist Party officials, military commanders, and their families. For the first time, many inside the system realized that Xi Jinping also has a weak point. In the life-and-death struggle between the military, party elites, and the top leader, they discovered that there may be a path that could place Xi Jinping in the same position as Maduro or Khamenei. This is precisely what Xi Jinping fears most. As a result, new waves of political purges are likely to emerge in order to eliminate individuals he no longer trusts. In authoritarian systems, such campaigns typically follow the logic of better to kill the wrong person than to let the real threat escape. History shows, however, that purges of this intensity rarely reduce a ruler's fear. Instead, they deepen suspicion and instability inside the system itself. At the same time, Xi Jinping's surrounding environment is also changing rapidly. Beijing has one of the highest densities of surveillance cameras in the world. According to a report by Surfshark, cited by the British newspaper Daily Mail in 2021, Beijing has approximately 1.15 million surveillance cameras, the highest number globally. These cameras constantly monitor the lives of Chinese citizens. For years, many people have described Chinese society as a vast prison covered by a technological surveillance network. After the Khamenei incident, that surveillance system takes on a different meaning. On March 5, China's state news agency Xinhua published an article stating that Israel had hacked Tehran's traffic camera system to gather intelligence on Khamenei. Images from these cameras were encrypted and transmitted to analysis centers in Israel. Using algorithmic analysis, they reconstructed the life patterns of Khamenei and other senior Iranian officials. The article cited by Xinhua therefore carries a striking implication. When Xi Jinping reads it, one image is difficult to avoid. The dense network of cameras inside and around Zhongnanhai may already be recording every detail of his own life. That means the threats Xi Jinping faces are no longer limited to people in the military or the party, who might harbor divided loyalties. They also include the vast surveillance system that he himself built to control society. Few people expected that two U.S. military operations could so profoundly change Xi Jinping's sense of security. Why do top CCP leaders hold such contemptuous views of Americans? Before President Donald Trump, there was a phrase often repeated inside the upper circles of the Chinese Communist Party, spoken with clear contempt, Americans are very easy to deceive. This statement was not merely rhetorical mockery. According to sources familiar with internal discussions, Xi Jinping himself once echoed a similar view during a closed door party meeting. He stated bluntly that as long as China created the illusion of reform, Americans would willingly deliver technology, capital and strategic resources to China. Within the CCP's strategic thinking, the West, especially the United States, is not treated as a genuine partner, but as a target whose psychology and interest can be manipulated. This approach has deep historical roots. One frequently cited story inside the party's diplomatic circles concerns Zhou Enlai and Henry Kissinger. When Zhou realized that Kissinger was extremely confident and highly concerned with personal prestige, he granted him the symbolic title of the man who opened history in the process of U.S.-China rapprochement. Later in an internal meeting, Zhou reportedly mocked the situation by saying, give Americans a red carpet and they will forget the knife hidden behind it. This mindset was not limited to individual leaders. It became institutionalized within the CCP's training system. The first strategy is summarized in the phrase, pull them out, then break into the system. The targets are second-tier politicians or politically marginalized figures in Western countries. While these individuals still lack real power, the CCP begins what it calls early political investment. This investment is typically conducted through intermediary companies, often referred to as white gloves. These entities can provide campaign funding, financial assistance, or arrange favorable connections. When these individuals later rise to positions of authority, any past benefits received or compromising history can be turned into pressure points. These vulnerabilities become deep mines planted inside Western political systems, capable of being detonated whenever Beijing needs to silence opposition or delay legislation unfavorable to the CCP. The second strategy is described internally with blunt clarity. Use business to pressure politics. This approach targets Western capital, particularly Wall Street and multinational corporations. In the early phase, Beijing offers massive market access and preferential treatment to attract investment. Over the past three decades, Western corporations poured hundreds of billions of dollars into China, building factories, supply chains, and financial structures deeply tied to the Chinese market. Once that level of dependence reaches a critical point, the balance of power shifts. Companies that have invested too deeply cannot withdraw easily. At that moment, they effectively become economic hostages. Whenever Washington attempts to adopt a tougher stance toward Beijing, these same corporations, fearful of losing profits, often turn around and lobby the White House to soften its policies. The third strategy operates on a deeper psychological level and is known as emotional capture and moral leverage. This tactic exploits a long-standing characteristic within Western political culture—the missionary impulse and the desire to improve the world. The CCP has repeatedly used this mindset to promote a narrative that China is poor, backward, and gradually reforming toward democracy, but that it needs Western assistance to succeed. It created a powerful illusion that if the West provided capital, technology, and market access, China would eventually evolve into a more open and liberal society. Many Western politicians believed they were acting as patrons of China's modernization. Yet the process they supported instead allowed the CCP to accumulate unprecedented economic and technological power. That illusion led the United States and the broader West, over the course of three decades, to transfer capital, technology, and market access to China on a while largely ignoring severe human rights abuses such as mass detention camps and allegations of forced organ harvesting. We'd love to hear your perspective. Leave a comment below and share your thoughts. If you found this video helpful, please share it with your friends. Your support keeps us going and inspires us to deliver even better content. Don't forget to like and subscribe for more in-depth analysis from Decoding China. Thank you for watching!