Pakistan is pushing for China to be involved in mediating an end to the U.S.-Israel war with Iran. With Islamabad already working as a back-channel for messaging between the Trump administration and officials in Tehran, Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar met with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Beijing Tuesday to discuss possible diplomatic solutions to the war.

China is seen as eager to play a role, given that it is a top consumer of Iranian oil. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning confirmed Tuesday that the two foreign ministers will work to maintain expanded communication channels and jointly push for a peaceful solution to the conflict.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, insists that behind-the-scenes talks with Iran are progressing despite public denials from Tehran. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that Iran has little choice but to embrace a ceasefire after the extensive damage to its military capabilities. “Despite all of the public posturing you hear from the regime and false reporting, talks are continuing well,” she said. “What is said publicly is, of course, much different than what’s being communicated to us privately.”

A wartime industrial surge continues in Ukraine, which no longer has to rely solely on a limited stock of Western long-range weapons or on sporadic raids. Kyiv is increasingly using domestically produced drones and, in a smaller but growing number of cases, Ukrainian missiles to hit targets far behind the front.

Threat Status Special Correspondent Guillaume Ptak was granted exclusive access to one of the workshops of Ukrainian defense manufacturer Fire Point. In a dispatch from the war zone, he reports on how the Ukrainian pairing of drones and missiles is beginning to stretch Russian air defenses and turn Russia’s depth into a vulnerability. 

In the latest example, Ukraine on Saturday hit the Promsintez explosives plant in Russia’s Samara region with FP-5 Flamingo missiles. The Ukrainian military said the Russian facility produces more than 30,000 tons of military-grade explosives a year and that the strike caused an explosion in the production area.

Chinese warships and military aircraft conducted a show of force recently around a disputed shoal in the South China Sea amid growing tensions with the Philippines and Japan.

The People’s Liberation Army command says its naval and air forces have conducted tracking, monitoring, warning and expulsion activities. A video shows two Chinese J-15 fighter jets flying and two Jiangkai II-class guided-missile frigates near Scarborough shoal within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, west of the island of Palawan.

The development comes as the U.S., Japanese and Philippine military forces prepare for annual Balikatan drills slated to be held in the area from April 20 through late May. Japan is sending troops to the drills for the first time amid rising tension with Beijing over Tokyo’s support for Taiwan.

Mr. Trump vented frustration at the United Kingdom and France on Tuesday, saying the U.S. will no longer assist them because of their refusal to join military action against Iran.

In a series of Truth Social posts, the president criticized France for refusing to let U.S. planes headed to Israel load up with military supplies and fly over French airspace. “France has been VERY UNHELPFUL with respect to the ‘Butcher of Iran,’ who has been successfully eliminated! The U.S.A. will REMEMBER!!!” Mr. Trump posted.

The president then turned his ire toward the United Kingdom, saying America had done the hard work and the U.K. and other nations that rely on oil from the Middle East should “build up some delayed courage” and take control of the Strait of Hormuz.

From the Persian Gulf War to more recent confrontations involving Iran and Venezuela, American battlefield dominance has “repeatedly exposed systemic weaknesses in China’s military-industrial complex, forcing cycles of hurried modernization, internal crisis and political purges,” Miles Yu writes in an op-ed for The Washington Times.

“This pattern reflects not only strategic rivalry but also deeper structural deficiencies within the Chinese Communist Party system itself,” writes Mr. Yu, director of the Hudson Institute’s China Center and an opinion contributor to Threat Status.

“At its core, the CCP has long defined the United States as its principal adversary,” he writes. “Yet rather than pursuing steady, innovation-driven development, China’s military modernization has largely been shock-driven.”

• March 31 — Global Fallout: The Iran War, from Hormuz to the Indo-Pacific, Stimson Center

• March 31 — U.S. Navy Fighting Instructions with the Chief of Naval Operations, Center for Strategic & International Studies 

• April 1 — Regional Shockwaves: Long-Term Implications of the U.S.-Israel-Iran War, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

• April 1 — How is the U.S.-Israel War on Iran Impacting Energy and the Global Economy? Chatham House

• April 2 — Fractured Fronts: The Iran War’s Impact on the Axis of Resistance, Middle East Institute

• April 7 — U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on the Future of Trade Policy, Hudson Institute

• April 7 — U.S.-Turkish Defense Relations and the Upcoming NATO Summit, Atlantic Council