00:00The most important trade link between China and Iran is oil. There have been sanctions that the
00:06US has imposed on China's Iranian oil consumption, but they have not actually stopped volumes of
00:16Iranian oil from reaching China. What has had an impact, frankly, is the recent blockade.
00:23The US has sanctioned Tehran and its oil trade for years, and China has largely disregarded that.
00:34Now, there are some nuances to that. China is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil,
00:40but its big state oil companies don't buy Iranian oil. So what China has been buying
00:47has been purchased by the independent refiners known as teapots. And over the years, the US has
00:56imposed sanctions specifically selectively against small refiners. If China is indeed targeted by
01:05fresh measures, you know, we have seen in the recent past, quite a bit of tit for tat retaliation
01:12between China and the US. You know, there has been a trade war between the two countries. So we,
01:21presumably, if past is prologue, there would be some, some sort of retaliation. What is interesting,
01:28contextually, is that, you know, exactly a month from now, Chinese President Xi Jinping is due to visit
01:35Washington. And so it is an awkward time to impose fresh sanctions on China at this moment.
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