HengliPosts by

Trump and Xi met in Beijing on 14-15 May, the first US state visit to China since 2017. The joint position supports reopening the strait and rejects ‘a charge for transiting through it.’ This post reads what the phrase means against UNCLOS Article 26 and the Suez/Panama services-fee precedent, separates the rejection of the Iranian sovereignty-asserting toll from the question of how a working authority recovers its institutional cost, and identifies where the summit narrows the negotiating space.

On 2 May 2026, China’s Ministry of Commerce issued the first formal prohibition order under the 2021 Blocking Rules, barring compliance inside China with US sanctions on five Chinese refineries buying Iranian crude. The order hardens the buyer leg of the four-leg toll architecture against further OFAC erosion. This post reads what changes, what doesn’t, and why a treaty-backed transit authority can coexist with the bifurcated buyer-side legal environment by design.