The US Treasury designated nearly 60 individuals, companies, and vessels Monday under a sanctions campaign Secretary Scott Bessent called Operation Economic Outcast, with more than a third of the targets based in China.
Treasury said Sweet Ocean Industrial Limited, a Hong Kong firm central to the China-linked designations, procured laser optics and an accelerometer, a component that guides missiles and aircraft, for Iran’s Malek Ashtar University of Technology, an Iranian research institution tied to the country’s defense establishment.
Treasury named three China-based individuals, Li Na, Tian Jianbai, and Zhang Limei, for coordinating procurement and payments on Sweet Ocean’s behalf, along with several Hong Kong firms, including DEC Photonics, Feili, Minvur, Feisu, and Guska, that it said funneled money through the network.
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Chinese state banks weren’t among the targets. A reporter asked Bessent directly whether they were in the administration’s sights. He said “no one is above the reach of US sanctions,” adding that any institution that helps convert Iranian oil into cash would face designation.
The Foreign Ministry pushed back the next day, with Spokesman Lin Jian saying economic warfare would “only further intensify tensions and conflicts, create spillover risks,” and that Beijing’s cooperation with Iran falls within international law.
China buys roughly 90% of Iran’s oil exports, giving Beijing outsized leverage over whether the broader sanctions campaign succeeds. Monday’s designations left that leverage yet untested. Xi Jinping plans to visit Washington on September 24.
