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China Plays the Iran Card

Jul 29, 2020 Vali Nasr , Ariane Tabatabai

A recently announced partnership accord between China and Iran will have far-reaching strategic implications in the Middle East and South Asia. As much as Americans would like to withdraw from these regions once and for all, the fact is that the US rivalry with China will be a global affair.

WASHINGTON, DC – Earlier this month, Iran announced that it is negotiating a 25-year agreement with China encompassing trade, energy, infrastructure, telecommunications, and even military cooperation. For Iran, the prospect of a strategic partnership with China comes at a critical time. The Iranian government has been confronting popular discontent over a sinking domestic economy, which has been battered by American sanctions and, now, COVID-19.

Making matters worse, a recent series of explosions across the country has deepened the sense that the regime is under siege. Damaging at least two sites associated with the Iranian nuclear and missile programs, these incidents appear to be part of a broader strategy by the United States and Israel to cripple Iran’s capabilities.

News of a large deal with China is thus a welcome diversion for the Iranian government, and may even buy it time to maintain the status quo until the November 2020 US presidential election. The outcome of that contest will determine the trajectory of US-Iranian relations and the fate of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), while also influencing Iran’s own presidential election in June 2021.

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Vali Nasr

Writing for PS since 2020
2 Commentaries

Vali Nasr, Professor of Middle East Studies and International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, is a former senior adviser in the US State Department and the author of The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat.

Ariane Tabatabai

Writing for PS since 2020
1 Commentary

Ariane Tabatabai is a Middle East fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and a senior research scholar at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

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G B Jul 31, 2020

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Jonathan Engel Jul 30, 2020

An increasingly desperate Persia seeks to escape from economic collapse which most of its near and far neighbours see as the only road to regime change... Trapped by its own rhetoric and accumulated sunk costs of nuclear weapons and delivery systems development, the regime is in no position to do anything but clutch at straws. China is clearly one such straw. Seems to me that China's strategy is to exploit the weakness of the regime by imposing asymmetrically built deals which a future regime might feel bound to uphold "because it's China". The Chinese are playing Chess (did that originate in Persia ?), the Persians are building houses of cards...
- Michael Public Jul 30, 2020
  
  "The Chinese are playing Chess (did that originate in Persia ?)"
  
  India - then it moved to Persia from where it went west. But Go predates it by about 2600 years and is significantly more computationally complex. Go originated in China.
  
  Chess deals with striking a single killing blow on a single important piece, the king. Go deals with creating several regional encirclements. A metaphor, perhaps?
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Michael Public Jul 30, 2020

Poor Iran - geographically and politically it is torn between America's will to project power East, China's will to project power West and Russia's will to project power South. Luckily for them, southwards lies only great waters and a few Somalian pirates.
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j. von Hettlingen Jul 29, 2020

Vali Nasr and Ariane Tabatabai say the recently announced partnership agreement between China and Iran will have “far-reaching strategic implications” in the Middle East and South Asia. The economic and security pact would clear the way for Chinese investments in energy and other sectors, throwing Iran an economic lifeline. It deals a major blow to Trump’s “maximum pressure” on Tehran, since he scraped the landmark nuclear deal in May 2018 that world powers had signed with Iran in 2015.
China would further extend its influence in the regions, creating new flash points with the US. Beijing started a military base – its first overseas outpost – in Djibouti, East Africa in 2015, under the pretext of fighting pirates off the coast of Somalia. The new Iran deal will give China a strategic vantage point on the waters through which much of the world’s oil transits. The passage is of highly strategic importance to the US, whose Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain. China’s presence at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, could usher in the end of the US dominance in the Strait of Hormuz.
President Xi Jinping’s “Belt-and-Road” Initiative that finances infrastructure projects have left countries in Africa and Asia indebted and ultimately beholden to Beijing. A particular concern has been the proposed port facilities in Iran along the coast of the Sea of Oman. The authors say, China “could even gain control of the Iranian port of Chahbahar, which its main rival, India, has been developing in response to China’s development of the nearby Pakistani port of Gwador.”
The Chahbahar port aims to allow “India to circumvent Pakistan – another rival – in its trade with Central Asia. But, despite the port’s recognized importance, US sanctions are forcing India out of Chahbahar and frustrating Iran. In fact, Iran is already reportedly forcing India out of a railway project that bypasses Pakistan to connect with Afghanistan and Central Asia.” China has recently clashed with India on the borders in the Himalayas – a sign that Beijing is taking “its footprint” in West Asia seriously.
The sanctions the US has reimposed on Iran include the threat to cut off access to the international banking system for any company that does business in Iran, and they have succeeded in suffocating the Iranian economy. China has the capital Tehran desperately needs, and appetite for oil – Iran happens to be one of the world’s largest oil producers. Trump is hoping to force Iran to renegotiate the 2015 accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). But Iran’s leaders have remained defiant.
The new deal would undercut the US efforts to isolate Iran and contain its nuclear and military ambitions. This constitutes deepening military cooperation with China, potentially giving Beijing a foothold in a region, that has been a strategic concern of the US for decades. There will be joint training and exercises, with Russia also playing a role; joint research and weapons development and intelligence sharing etc. The deal could change the balance of geopolitical power in the Middle East and South Asia.
However eager Americans are to withdraw from the regions once and for all, the US strategic rivalry with China “will not play out only in East Asia.” The authors urge the US to “try placing a wedge between China and Iran, which requires deciding which one poses the greater threat.” It is easier said than done. In fact Trump’s pressure on China and Iran has driven America’s two foes into each other’s arms, although the Sino-Iranian a relationship “is still a long way from becoming a new axis.”
So far Iran’s foreign policy strategy has been to “balance one great power against another…..in response to US diplomatic and economic pressure, its security forces looked to Russia, key economic sectors looked to China, and the Rouhani government reached out to Europe.”
As tensions between China and the US rise, Iran is looking to Beijing “to shore up its economy and balance the US. Closer ties with China would give Iran more leverage in future talks with the US and Europe when it comes to revising or restoring the JCPOA, as well as in its dealings with regional rivals such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.”
Beijing is wary of its strategic partnership with Iran – a “minefield for China.” Despite trade and investment in Iran, China is mindful of drawing “America’s ire” amid en escalating trade war, by “potentially exposing itself to US sanctions,” as it could lose “some access to the US market (which is far larger than that of Iran). Not surprisingly, Chinese officials have been relatively quieter about the negotiations than their Iranian counterparts have been.”
Beijing is also seeking to walk a tightrope by not upsetting “its regional partnerships with Israel or Saudi Arabia, each of which is currently engaged in proxy wars with and covert operations against Iran.”
If China really wants to establish itself as a global player, it might as well seize the opportunity to restore peace in the region by mediating between Iran and Saudi Arabia – the two arch enemies in the region. Instead Beijing chooses not to meddle in other countries' domestic affairs, while reaping benefits from discord and divisions.
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M. M. Y. Jul 29, 2020

Thank you for a thoughtful article, but it is quite uncertain how much of a "welcome diversion" this deal might really be for the regime given the massive public outcry, as evident through the massive negative reactions posted across various social media platforms, by Iranians, against the "China Deal?"
It might be helpful for your readers to also consider:
1) The deal was in fact made public thanks to a very rare and unusual high-level leakage of its outlines;
2) The very fact that Rowhani, led by his Foreign Minister Zarif had to push back / semi-deny the deal (as not "yet formal" and only a proposal) indicates the depth of the public push-back and negative reaction to the deal;
3) As for "buying time" until the November Presidential elections in the US, given current US trends, Tehran is already booking its hotel rooms and ordering halal lunches for their "talks" with the Biden administration.
However, as counter intuitive as it might sound to some, it will be a mistake for Mr. Zarif to assume a roll-over by a future President Biden as he is likely to end up being a much tougher negotiator than a transactional Donal Trump would have been. Why? Because Mr. Biden recognizes that a) he will be under a big microscope on Iran, and, b) the US (irrespective of the occupant of the Oval) has all the leverage.
And so, paradoxically, it is entirely possible that when all said and done, Tehran will most likely realize it should've preferred to deal with Donal Trump than Joe Biden! (The one who would've rolled over at the first wink would've been "The Donald" -- Who has alway looked for love in all the wrong places!)
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