Chinese Content Creators Behind Iran's Success in Downing Advanced US Jets?
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BEIJING – A viral phenomenon has emerged in China amid the raging war in the Middle East. Chinese engineering experts are enthusiastically helping Iran fight the US voluntarily, without payment or government support. This phenomenon first appeared on 14 March when a detailed tutorial on how to down an F-35 jet circulated on Chinese social media.
The tutorial video was created by the account “Laohu Talks World” with a title in Persian. In detail, the video explains how Iran can use a low-cost system to target and destroy advanced stealth US jets.
Since it was uploaded, the video has immediately reached tens of millions of viewers. Five days later, on 19 March, Iran claimed to have successfully struck one F-35 jet.
Recently, on Chinese social media, many netizens with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have created accounts and shared content aimed at helping Iran in the war against the US-Israel. Some have appeared with knowledge of military weaponry.
Their content covers a wide spectrum, such as providing accurate coordinates of US military bases in the Middle East, offering missile strategies against US aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, and defence simulations anticipating US ground attacks on Kharg Island.
The scale of China’s STEM resources is known to be significant. China currently produces five million STEM graduates every year, about 1.3 million of whom are engineering graduates. This figure far exceeds the US, which produces 130,000 engineers annually.
“Many of the (creators) are students working in the military equipment industry,” said a source from the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
The Laohu account provides detailed analysis for Iran, underscoring how low-cost weapons such as infrared missiles, mobile launchers, and sensors can challenge advanced US weaponry systems, including aircraft carriers. An SCMP source described Laohu’s work as based on seeking personal recognition rather than profit.
“He is not short of money at the moment. He makes those videos for fun,” said the source.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 Iranian civilians have died as a result of US-Israel aggression, including an attack that killed 168 children at Minab school. This tragedy is reported to have also sparked anger and sympathy among Chinese citizens, leading some to resolve to help Iran against the US.
According to the aforementioned SCMP source, Chinese citizens’ sentiments reflect the main goal of the volunteers - a desire to shatter the long-standing myth of US military dominance. Some military analysts in China view this phenomenon as part of a decentralisation trend where content creators use intelligence information to produce military analysis for the outside world.
So far, there is no evidence that the analyses from these content creators have directly influenced Iran’s success in shooting down US jets. The Iranian Embassy in China did not immediately respond to SCMP’s request for confirmation regarding this phenomenon.