Webinar | Whither the CCP as Its Iranian Clients Wither? March 10, 2026

 

Webinar | Whither the CCP as Its Iranian Clients Wither?           

Published On: March 10, 2026

A CPDC WEBINAR

Whither the CCP as Its Iranian Clients Wither?

Wednesday, March 11, 2026
10:00–11:15 a.m. ET

FULL TRANSCRIPT

NOTE: This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may contain grammatical and spelling errors incurred during transcription. Please refer to the referenced media to confirm.

President Trump has offered differing assessments of how the war with Iran is progressing, how close it is to a successful conclusion and what comes next with respect to that nation’s government.

One thing seems clear: The Chinese Communist Party has a lot riding on the outcome. It needs access to cheap, sanctions-busting oil imports from Iran. Its air defenses and other weapons have been deployed widely there – and have not performed well, with adverse implications for their marketing elsewhere.

And the resulting external pressures only exacerbate China’s serious domestic economic, political and demographic challenges.

So, will Chinese dictator Xi Jinping respond to these difficulties by deferring his plans for aggression against Taiwan and other U.S. interests? Or will he accelerate them in the hope of exploiting the current American preoccupation with Iran?

This CPDC webinar considers these questions and others arising from the ongoing war in Iran, the role the CCP is playing in the continuation of that conflict, what else it might do to prop up its client regime and otherwise try to undermine U.S. and Israel pursuit of a decisive victory over, let alone unconditional surrender by the dead-enders in the Iranian regime.

Moderator

• Frank Gaffney, President, Institute for the American Future; Vice Chairman, Committee on the Present Danger: China; Member, Victory Coalition; host, “Securing America”

Panelists:

• Cmdr/Dr. David Wurmser, PhD, U.S. Navy (Ret.), Former Senior Middle East advisor to an Under Secretary of State, National Security Advisor and Vice President of the United States; Director, Middle East program, Center for Security Policy
• Lt Colonel Guermantes Lailari, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), Former Foreign Area Officer, Senior Non-Resident Fellow, Jewish Policy Center (Taiwan)
• Capt. James Fanell, U.S. Navy, (Ret.), Former Chief of Intelligence and Information Operations, U.S. Pacific Fleet; Senior Fellow, Geneva Center or Security Policy; co-author, Embracing Communist China: America’s Greatest Strategic Failure
• Gordon Chang, Senior Distinguished Fellow, Gatestone Institute; columnist, Newsweek; author, Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America
• Grant Newsham, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.), Former Military Attaché in Embassy Tokyo; former Foreign Service Officer; longtime business executive in the Western Pacific; Author, “When China Attacks: A Warning to America”

Brian T. Kennedy, President, the American Strategy Group; former President, the Claremont Institute; author of, among other works, Communist China’s War Inside America.