I'm John Batchel. I'm John Batchel. Gordon Chang, at Gordon G. Chang, my colleague and co-host is here, and we're speaking with Steve Yates at the Heritage Foundation.

Gentlemen, I want to imagine the day after the shooting stops in Iran, and there is an accommodation of whatever sort.

The People's Republic of China is dependent upon Iran and the Gulf for energy supplies and other things, Eurea.

There are other products here.

They're niche commodities, but I'm concentrating on energy.

Steve, do they have a plan?

Do we know what the plan is?

And has President Trump suddenly arrived at having leverage that's maximum leverage when he has those

tariff talks?

Well, John, I'm sure that there are plans.

The one thing that the Chinese Communist Party does is plan and brainstorm and come up

with all kinds of things, whether it matches with reality is another question.

But they certainly have plans of trying to execute.

I imagine one of their first priorities to prepare for a post-conflict Iran is to make sure that they still have privileged access to Iran's resources.

They would probably want to avoid any notion of the United States or United States affiliated network having some kind of determinative influence over the flow of these resources on which they depend.

They had a great deal before when they were helping bust sanctions that they could get not just privileged access to the resources, but also at discounted prices.

And so I think their highest priority in post-conflict is to make sure that they have, at best, access that is not overly influenced by the United States with the option of imposing sanctions in a time of crisis or pressure.

So that's their abiding interest

in trying to influence Iran's political leadership and trying to see what the contours of post-conflict

region look like. Gordon, have a question. Yeah, China's relations with Tehran are really going to be dependent on whether that regime is still in place.

If it's in place, the Chinese, I'm sure, will be okay.

But the question is, do you think President Trump is going to allow any post-Iranian regime, post-war regime to maintain vibrant relations with China?

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