Is China Rebuilding Iran’s Air Defences with HQ-9B Long Range Missile Systems?

Defence affairs analysis

   Batteries of chinese HQ-9B missile

Following the emergence of reports that China has supplied air defence systems to the Iranian Armed Forces, there has been significant speculation regarding the kinds of assets which may have been supplied to the embattled Middle Eastern state. 

With the reports emerging exactly two weeks after a ceasefire ended eleven days of Iranian-Israeli hostilities, which began when Israel launched large scale air strikes on targets in Iran, the enhancement of Iran’s network of ground-based air defence systems, and increased readiness of its ballistic missile and drone forces to launch counterattacks, have been expected to be among the highest priorities for the country’s armed forces. Iran previously fielded no modern Chinese air defence systems, with the backbone of its long range surface-to-air capabilities formed of Soviet S-200, Russian S-300PMU-2, and indigenous Bavar 373 systems.

The performance of Iran’s existing air defence systems has been hotly disputed, with Iranian government sources having reported the successful shootdown of four Israeli Air Force F-35s, attributing three of these to the Bavar 373. The likely veracity of Iranian claims was previously analysed by Military Watch in detail, including assessments of the strengths and limitations of Iran’s air defences and significant risks faced by F-35s operating on such penetration missions. Israeli and Western sources have denied any such successes. If Iranian reports are correct, however, it would still represent a low attrition rate for the F-35 when considering the fighter’s lack of anti-radiation missile capabilities, which will be realised only with upgraded Block 4 software, the scale of Iranian air defence deployments, and the depth into Iranian territory at which the fighters were operating.

While much more is known regarding the S-300PMU-2 than the Bavar 373, the Russian system is over two decades old and remains well behind the cutting edge. Western sources previously widely claimed that Israel had successfully neutralised all of Iran’s S-300PMU-2 systems during attacks in October 2024, although such assertions were seriously undermined by Iran’s unveiling of the systems still intact during a parade four months later. Although Russia continues to lead the world in the quantities of long range air defence equipment it produces, and the capabilities of its systems such as the S-400 and S-500 have maintained a world leading standing, the country’s preoccupation with ongoing hostilities in Eastern Europe and tensions with NATO have limited its capacity to export its systems on any significant scale.