Meet the world’s most elusive arms dealer

The Chinese Phantom. By Christoph Giesen, Philipp Grüll, Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer. Translated by Simon Pare. Scribe; 288 pages; £20

Iranian missiles are lodged in the centre of Middle Eastern conflict today. In April Iran conducted the largest-ever missile barrage, firing more than 300 drones and rockets at Israel. Hamas in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon have fired them at Israel; the Houthis in Yemen have fired them at ships in the Red Sea. Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq have used them to target American troops. How did Iran become a missile superpower?

It is all down to one man, argues “The Chinese Phantom”, a book by four German journalists, published last year in German and recently translated into English. Karl Lee, a shady Chinese arms dealer, supplies the bulk of material and equipment for Iran’s ballistic-missile programme, America’s State Department avers. Mr Lee has a long and eye-popping rap sheet. Having built up contacts as a Chinese government official, he then set up an innocuous-sounding company in Dalian, a port on the Yellow Sea, in 1998. It was the first of many. For the past quarter-century he is believed to have provided aluminium, carbon fibre, gyroscopes and more to help Iran build lighter missiles that can fly farther and stay on course.

“The Chinese Phantom” weaves together the story of that illicit arms network, America’s frustrated efforts to put pressure on China to shut it down and the geopolitics of Iranian missile technology and Sino-American competition. The authors hunt for Mr Lee in parts of China where few foreign reporters are likely to have set foot. Two of the authors won the Pulitzer prize for their reporting on the Panama papers, a series of leaks of corporate and financial records published in 2016; they draw on that work to unravel parts of Mr Lee’s byzantine shell companies.

However, what might have been a riveting true-crime tale has two problems. One is the authors’ flabby, undisciplined writing. Descriptions of undramatic meetings with sources are preceded by paragraphs of flowery prose. “Lee ranks so highly on the CIA’s wanted list”, the authors implausibly argue at one point, “that special forces…etch his face into their memories the moment they start their training.”

The bigger issue is that it is a whodunnit without a satisfying ending. Mr Lee, apparently protected by the Chinese state, is a spectral presence throughout the book. The authors do an admirable job of chasing every lead, however slender. They speak to Mr Lee’s family and a wide array of spooks and even visit Mr Lee’s factories, which have graphite (well suited to rocket-motor nozzles) piled up in the courtyard. But by the end the authors cannot even tell for sure whether he is in prison or not.

Still, the book is an accomplished piece of investigative journalism that sheds light on the inner workings of the global arms trade. The subject is urgent and timely. Iranian officials have hinted that an old fatwa, or religious ruling, on nuclear weapons might be abrogated. Recently American and British officials have grown concerned that Russia, in exchange for drones and missiles, has provided Iran with nuclear secrets. Should Iran develop a nuclear weapon in the coming years it would be mounted on the ballistic missiles that the elusive Mr Lee has so assiduously, and profitably, helped spread.

Clarification (September 23rd 2024): We have amended our description of a fatwa, from “prohibition” to “ruling”.

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