SMIC, China’s largest chipmaker, has sent chipmaking tools to Iran’s military, two senior Trump administration officials said on Thursday, raising questions about Beijing’s stance in the month-old U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran.
SMIC which has been heavily sanctioned by the U.S. government over alleged ties to the Chinese military, began sending the tools to Iran roughly a year ago and “we have no reason to believe that any of this has stopped,” one of the officials said.
The official added that the collaboration “almost certainly included technical training on SMIC’s semiconductor technology.”


Ok, question: say, hypothetically, Iran were indeed rushing towards a handful of nukes…why are China/russia/Pakistan so chill with it? It only dilutes their nuclear deterrence, how are they so sure that this is not the case?