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WASHINGTON: Earlier this month, Iran announced that it would negotiate a 25-year agreement with China covering 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 faced discontent with a declining national economy, which has been hit by U.S. sanctions and now COVID-19.
To make matters worse, a recent series of explosions across the country has reinforced the sense that the regime is under siege.
By damaging at least two sites related to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, these incidents appear to be components of a broader strategy by the United States and Israel to cried out Iran’s capabilities.
A WELCOME FUN
The news of a major deal with China is therefore a welcome distraction for the Iranian government, and would possibly even save prestige time until the NOVEMBER 2020 US presidential election.
The final results of the contest will be the trajectory of U.S.-Iran relations and the fate of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan (JCPOA), while also influencing Iran’s presidential election in June 2021.
Certainly, Iranians have traditionally been reluctant to align themselves too much with wonderful power, and are even less willing to settle for economic protection.
As Iran’s relations with China are already a source of domestic controversy, the country’s parliament would possibly refuse to ratify the agreement unless it is reviewed to address some concerns.
But Iran’s economy has been in freefall since 2018, when Trump’s management withdrew from jcPOA and introduced its “maximum sanctions” crusade for heavy sanctions to pressure the regime.
Moreover, while the regime as a whole faces a public backlash, Iranian President Hassan Rohani’s government has suffered great domestic pressure.
The announcement of an agreement with China allows Rohani’s government to prove that it is not laying all its eggs in the Western basket. The message to other Iranians is that they are not remote and can even gain advantages from economic innovations despite US sanctions.
At the foreign level, Iran has sought to balance one wonderful force opposite to another. During the decade since, in reaction to the diplomatic and economic tension of the United States, its security forces turned to Russia, primary economic sectors turned to China, and Rohani’s government turned to Europe.
Now, with the China-US. Tensions, Iran is turning to China to consolidate its economy and balance the United States. Closer ties with China would give Iran more influence in long-term talks with the United States and Europe regarding the revision or recovery of the JCPOA, as well as in its relations with regional rivals such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
A MINING FIELD FOR CHINA
On the other hand, a strategic partnership with Iran is a minefield for China. While China continues to work in industry with Iran and invests in the country’s infrastructure, deepening relations can anger the United States at a critical and sensitive diplomatic moment.
By potentially exposing itself to U.S. sanctions, China’s dangers waste some access to the U.S. market (which is much larger than Iran’s). It is therefore not unexpected that Chinese officials have been quieter about the negotiations than their Iranian counterparts.
Similarly, China does not need to disrupt its regional partnerships with Israel or Saudi Arabia, of which it has lately engaged in power wars and covert operations opposed to Iran.
But China obviously sees a certain price in forging a comprehensive agreement with Iran, a regional player whose vast resources of power and enormous economic outlook make it a grass-based candidate for the West China’s West-facing Strip and Road Initiative.
China already buys low-priced oil from Iran, a not insignificant credit to the world’s largest energy customer, and has Iran’s largest trading partner, that is, as the leading supplier of heavy machinery and manufactured goods.
More broadly, China has a greater interest in West Asia over the back decade. It is the main sponsor of the Shanghai Regional Cooperation Organization and has invested more than $57 billion in Pakistan.
As the United States is in a position to leave Afghanistan, a partnership with Iran will give China close control over the strategic corridor from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea.
As a component of this expansion, China may even take the Iranian port of Chahbahar, which its main Asian rival, India, evolved in reaction to China’s progression of the neighboring Pakistani port of Gwador. The port of Chahbahar allows India to avoid Pakistan, some other rival, in its industry with Central Asia.
But despite the port’s stated importance, U.S. sanctions forced India to leave Chahbahar and frustrated Iran.
Indeed, Iran has already forced India to abandon a rail assignment that prevents Pakistan from joining Afghanistan and Central Asia. News of this rupture came here after China and Iran announced an initial agreement.
STRATEGIC COMPETITION
Recent skirmishes on the China-India border show how seriously China is making its mark in West Asia.
In addition to opening the door to China to Shahbahar and monopolizing industry routes to Central Asia, the agreement also appears to offer China opportunities to expand naval services in the Gulf of Oman. Although the United States has always sought to move away from the Middle East to focus more on China, the emerging China-Iran agreement reminds us that the two theaters are not separated in any way.
By expanding pressure on China and Iran, the United States has encouraged the two countries to forge an unusual front. While Chinese-Iranian dating is not yet in line with a new axis, recent negotiations show that such a settlement is possible.
U.S. foreign policy officials take note. The United States will have to retreat to close the China-Iran hole, which requires deciding which poses the greatest threat.
Maybe Americans need more than just leaving the Middle East once and for all. But the fact is that the strategic festival with China will be only in East Asia.
Vali Nasr is Professor of Middle East and International Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Ariane Tabatabai is a middle Eastern member of the Alliance to Secure Democracy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and a member of the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.