Decide for yourselves…I still think that this, if true, may take a backseat to millions of gallons of oil in the oceans.
From World Tribune:
Report: China, Iran, North Korea have formed strategic alliance

TEL AVIV —
China, Iran and North Korea have established a strategic alliance that focuses on missile and nuclear development, according to a new report.

The report said that Beijing, Pyongyang and Teheran were helping each other in missile and nuclear programs. The report, titled “China, Iran and North Korea: A Triangular Strategic Alliance,” by Israel’s GLORIA Center said China and North Korea
were the key suppliers of Scud-based ballistic missiles to Iran’s military, the target of Western sanctions.

“This flurry of activities underscored the growing proliferation threats posed by DPRK [North Korea] assistance to Iran’s missile capabilities, which has also led to collaboration in the nuclear realm,” the report, published in the Middle East Review of International Affairs, said.

The report from Middle East Review Of International Affairs:

CHINA, IRAN, AND NORTH KOREA: A TRIANGULAR STRATEGIC ALLIANCE

By Christina Y. Lin *

While the international community is facing a nuclear stalemate with Iran and North Korea, China is increasingly emerging as a Great Wall in blocking the path towards sanctions and peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis and denuclearizaton of the Korean Peninsula. While much recent literature has been written on the deleterious effects of a regional nuclear arms race should Iran become a nuclear power, there has been relatively little effort to explore why China persistently defends Iran by blocking or watering down UNSC sanctions and on the strategic partnership between Iran and North Korea in missile and nuclear collaboration. This paper explores the triangular strategic alliance between China, Iran, and North Korea and the attendant negative spill-over that poses a threat to East Asia and Middle East regional stability.

Introduction: Iran in China’s Strategic Calculus

There is a paucity of research on Sino-Iran relations in the international security literature, yet this relationship has important implications for East Asia and Middle East regional security. Historically, Sino-Iran relations span back thousands of years, and their modern partnership began in the 1970s, first with the Shah and then continuing with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, coupled with the Shah’s fear of Soviet misadventures in Iran and the Gulf, paved way for Sino-Iran rapprochement. This was further reinforced by their shared sense of history as great ancient empires that were humiliated by the West.[1] From 1858 to 1860, Russia seized large swaths of Siberia from China, while throughout the 1800s, European powers carved up China and Iran.[2] Currently, on a pragmatic level, China is paving a new energy silk road with Iran to meet its energy security-driven foreign policy goals and to hedge against U.S. domination over their energy supply in the Persian Gulf.

China’s Persian Gulf Strategy

In 1993, China became a net importer of oil and is now the second biggest energy consumer in the world, after the United States. However, China’s peer competitor, the United States, with its formidable naval power, controls sea lanes of communications (SLOC) for oil supplies that may be cut off over a potential Taiwan clash. As such, in 2000 a Chinese article in the influential Strategy and Management Journal recommended that China’s strategy in the Persian Gulf should be to align with Iran.[3] In the article, the author posits that since the United States already controls the west bank of the oil-rich Persian Gulf via its pro-American proxies (e.g., Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states), the Gulf is in effect an “internal sea” for the United States, and challenges to that position are likely to fail. However, if China and Russia expand relations with Iran, they could maintain a “minimum balance” to thwart U.S. moves. Since securing oil imports from the Gulf requires both the U.S.-controlled west bank and the China/Russia-supported Iranian east bank, this axis would block U.S. efforts to impose oil embargoes against other countries. Should the United States and China ever have a military clash over Taiwan, the United States would not shut off China’s Gulf oil supplies since China, Russia, and Iran control the Gulf’s east bank.[4] Indeed, in 2001, China followed this strategic vision and formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with a Sino-Russia-Iran axis to counterbalance perceived U.S. hegemony.[5]

Hit the link above to read the rest of this detailed article.

(H/T Monster Reader)