Malcolm & Simone Collins break down the bombshell signals that China’s military bluff has been called — and the world order is shifting in real time.

After US-led operations dismantled Iranian and Venezuelan defenses with near-zero losses, China’s “world-class” weapons systems (the ones they sold their allies for billions) failed spectacularly in live combat. The very next day China quietly stopped its near-daily provocative flights over Taiwan. Coincidence? Malcolm doesn’t think so.

In this episode they explain:

* Why Iran’s desperate attempts to close the Strait of Hormuz are actually crushing China far more than the United States

* How Xi Jinping just purged the last experienced generals who warned him against invading Taiwan — right before those warnings came true

* The internal CCP chaos, the “fake it till you make it” culture exposed, and why even Peter Zeihan-style analysts got this completely wrong

* Trump’s surprisingly warm calls with Putin & Xi and what they really signal

* Why the next 6–12 months could decide whether Taiwan stays free or falls

Raw, data-heavy, zero corporate-media spin. If you want to understand what’s actually happening behind the headlines in 2026, this is the episode.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Right now, the United States, in terms of where we are struggling in this warfront, because a few big ships have been hit by Iranian missiles is to defend China’s economic interest.

That’s where their oil comes from, not ours. they’re essentially trying to hurt China until the US backs down over this.

Like the news. Says all of this without explaining it to people in stark terms,

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be talking about the signals that we have of a massive change in how China might be thinking about itself. Foreign policy wise.

Simone Collins: No,

Malcolm Collins: specifically, they shut down their flights over Taiwan, where they used to have constant sort of military antagonistic flights over Taiwan.

They said, oh, this is because, you know, we’re going to have this [00:01:00] upcoming meeting with Trump. Or people have said, well, maybe it’s because of oil prices. It happened literally the, the next sort that was supposed to fly over after the first news of the bombing started. So it’s, it’s obvious that’s not the case.

Simone Collins: Well, hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And specifically what I want to talk about is not just this that happened with China, but. In Iran, in Venezuela. And in another instance in Pakistan Chinese equipment, which they had touted and perhaps believed internally to be top of the line in equivalent to US equipment failed any level that was beyond spectacular.

You’ve gotta keep in mind the, I ran at a, a $5 billion weapons deal with China. Oh. And so they reportedly had some of the best equipment there. And not just that we’ll go over what analysts were saying, but you know, you have Peter Zhan [00:02:00] calling Caracas a, a fortress you know, and impossible to, to invade.

You have other analysts saying, Iran, there’s just nothing you can do. You know, it’s, it’s completely. Impregnable. And yet, and I’d like to point out people, like if, if you watch something that’s tainted by like the, the, the bias media sources you’ll get a very bad understanding, I think, of what’s going on right now.

And I, I think a lot of people when I hear them talk about what’s happening for example, in Iran or what happened in Venezuela. For, for, for context, we lost only two planes and those were to friendly fire. We have lost no boats. Okay. And in terms of the, the very light, I think it’s seven casualties now.

It’s because of like random missiles of bases. This is astonishing when you’re talking about these attacks taking [00:03:00] off the board within any, a matter of months Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba which was reliant on Venezuela, but, but the, the point here being is China, I think it’s now, and we’ll go into evidence of this, why this would be sort of going back over the books and having to rethink, like, are, are we anywhere near the military power?

We thought we were.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. Hold on though. We, the US shut down two of our own planes.

Malcolm Collins: It wasn’t us, it was another ally. I’ll get into it.

Simone Collins: Okay. Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: The, no, this is actually insane. Like at this point we have total air dominance in Iran at this point, which basically means we can fly wherever we want within.

What was one of the most hostile countries on earth to the United States until fairly recently, all of this happened without China. And Russia actually has [00:04:00] attempted to help a little bit with the Iran situation. Oh, really? But keep in mind, if you go to CCP videos they would regularly talk about how the reason why the US hadn’t done anything in Venezuela is because we’re afraid of China.

Speaker 2: Why has the United States held back for so long and still dared, not really strike Venezuela? This whole thing is pretty strange. This is Chinese, US warships. Were already deployed in the Caribbean. The threats were made loud and clear, yet nothing actually happened because China is watching from behind.

And Venezuela itself isn’t easy to deal with either. It has real backing from China, money when it needs money, supplies, when it needs supplies. That means if the US attacks, it won’t be anything like Iraq. Maduro is actually quite clever. He keeps saying China’s victory is our victory. Deliberately tying himself to China and making Washington even more hesitant to act.

Malcolm Collins: That was the, the CCP talking position. Right.

Simone Collins: Oh, interesting. Well, what’s also interesting too, and why I’m really glad you’re talking about this is what I’m hearing from mainstream, [00:05:00] we’ll say progressive leaning. YouTube people and from mainstream media is that the United States is putting itself in a uniquely, strategically weak position vis-a-vis China because we are diminishing our back stock of weapons on Iran making us unable to potentially support Taiwan, should China make a move.

Malcolm Collins: that is Okay. So like we, we, we should talk about how embarrassing this situation is for China right now. , The way that Iran is trying to get us to stop attacking them.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. Is by doing enough economic damage that the US feels it needs to pull back.

Right. The, the core way that they are doing that is attempting to increase shipping prices through the strait of Hermo. If that was cut off the core country that’s going to fail is China. Mm-hmm. Right now, the United [00:06:00] States, in terms of anywhere where we have our back against the wall in this Warfront anywhere where we are struggling in this warfront, because a few big ships have been hit by Iranian missiles is to defend China’s economic interest.

That’s where their oil comes from, not ours. We don’t get anything from the strai of her both. That’s China.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Had you contextualized that Simone?

Simone Collins: Huh? Well, it’s certainly not what people are talking about, so, no, I wasn’t thinking about it. It wasn’t top of mind. I mean, people had mentioned like, well, the US isn’t directly affected by the, you know, oil interruption, but that doesn’t matter because globalization means the US is affected.

If anyone else is affected, that’s, yes. And

Malcolm Collins: who is most affected? China. China is the country that [00:07:00] is most affected by what’s happening right now in terms of global powers. And. It’s, it’s so weird how they gloss over that they’re like, this could cause a global economic crash. Instigated, obviously not by the United States because we now have a bunch more oil, but by outside powers collapsing.

What outside power are you talking about there, buddy? Because I can think of one that depends on this strait being open a heck of a lot. And we’ve talked about this in other videos, but I think a lot of people do not contextualize how much China depends on this. A huge chunk. If the straight of Malacco was closed, which would be a little bit closer they’re losing 45% of and I’ve heard other estimates as high as 80% of their imported energy.

Mm-hmm. Which would be devastating. Not only that, but China is a net food importer and a net phosphorus importer, which is Doub China. We’re phosphorus

Simone Collins: though,

Malcolm Collins: because we’ll do a second video on this. Morocco did this play where it took the Western Sahara, which is like, they did a really good job of it as well.

Oh,

Simone Collins: you mentioned [00:08:00] this. They’re just like quietly doing a land grab. Is

Malcolm Collins: that right? That’s the vast majority of the world’s phosphorus supply, which is necessary to create fertilizer. Good for em isn’t something we can create artificially yet. All

Simone Collins: right,

Malcolm Collins: Maria? They have like 13 x the amount that China has.

Mm-hmm. And so, another thing about this conflict, which is interesting that you point this out. So not only is 17% of China’s oil coming from Iran and Venezuela, but a lot of the rest of their oil comes from countries that are now better f...