Laden Iranian ships depart Chinese port tied to key military chemicals

Two ships owned by an Iranian company that the United States has accused of supplying material to Tehran’s ballistic missile program departed a Chinese chemical-storage port this week laden with cargo and headed for Iran, according to a Washington Post analysis of ship-tracking data, satellite imagery and Treasury Department records.

The vessels are part of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), a state-owned company under U.S., British and European Union sanctions that has been described by the U.S. State Department as the “preferred shipping line for Iranian proliferators and procurement agents.”

The Shabdis and the Barzin — which can carry up to 6,500 and 14,500 20-foot-long containers, respectively — had docked at the Gaolan port in Zhuhai, a city on China’s southeastern coast. Experts told The Post that Gaolan is a loading port for chemicals including sodium perchlorate, a key precursor for solid rocket fuel that Iran desperately needs for its missile program.

A dozen other IRISL ships have visited the port since the start of the year. But experts said it would be notable for Beijing to allow any vessels to depart in this moment bound for Iran with weapons-related material as they expected China — America’s chief and most powerful strategic rival — to be wary of such an action while the United States and Iran are in direct combat.

“China could have held these vessels at port, imposed an administrative delay, invented a customs hold — any number of bureaucratic tools, but didn’t,” said Isaac Kardon, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, to The Post. “That’s a deliberate policy choice made during an active war in which Beijing publicly calls for restraint.”

Although IRISL operates as a large commercial carrier, Kardon said the circumstances of these shipments strongly suggest the cargo is sodium perchlorate. “Given the track record, the most parsimonious explanation is that they’re loading the same commodity they’ve been shuttling for the past year-plus,” he said.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond to messages seeking comment.

The Pentagon, the White House and the U.S. Treasury Department also did not respond to requests for comment.

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