Dozens of top Iranian leaders, including Ayatollah Hamine, have been killed in U.S.-Israel

joint strikes on Iran.

Iran has a tradition.

That tradition was interrupted for 47 years by the theocratic regime.

I'm sitting down with China analyst Gordon Chang to unpack how these strikes are reshaping

the global balance of power and why Beijing is feeling

the heat. I believe that President Trump is going after the Chinese and he's not doing it directly,

but he is doing it indirectly and he's cutting off their sources of support. This is the

struggle of our lifetimes and we'd better recognize it. This is American Thought Leaders and I'm Jania Kelek.

Gordon Chang, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders.

Thank you so much, Jan.

So Gordon, hot off the presses, China's UN ambassador on this March 1st emergency session at the

UN has basically said that the U.S. and Israel strikes were brazen violations of sovereignty

and demanded an immediate ceasefire to what's happening in Iran. What's your reaction? Well, that's China's reaction.

You know, it's the same one they had in Venezuela. All they did was they took the same press release.

They used the whiteout. They took out the word Venezuela. They put in Iran. They took out the word

Venezuelan and they put in Iranian, and there you have it.

China is not a superpower.

If it ever wants to, you know, it always criticizes the U.S., but when the U.S. is determined

to do something, it cannot stop us.

And that shows us the limits of Chinese power.

It's a very interesting reality, or contrasting here, or comparing with the Venezuelan reality. And I can't help but notice that we have two, let's call it, totalitarian leaders that have been deposed in the last very, very short period

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