Iran’s New Alliance with China Could Cost US
Submitted by Balance of Terror on Sat, 10/27/2007 - 20:00.
11/17/2004
The relationship has grown out of China's soaring energy needs --
crude oil imports surged nearly 40 percent in the first eight months
of this year, according to state media -- and Iran's growing appetite
for consumer goods for a population that has doubled since the 1979
revolution, Iranian officials and analysts say.
An oil exporter until 1993, China now produces only for domestic use.
Its proven oil reserves could be depleted in 14 years, oil analysts
say, so the country is aggressively trying to secure future suppliers.
* Iran is now China's second-largest source of imported oil.
The economic ties between two of Asia's oldest civilizations, which
were both stops on the ancient Silk Road trade route, have broad
political implications.
Holding a veto at the U.N. Security Council, China has become the key
obstacle to putting international pressure on Iran. During a visit to
Tehran this month, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing signaled that China
did not want the Bush administration to press the council to debate
Iran's nuclear program. U.S. officials have expressed fear that China's
veto power could make Iran more stubborn in the face of U.S. pressure.
* The burgeoning relationship is reflected in two huge new oil and gas deals
between the two countries that will deepen the relationship for at
least the next 25 years, analysts here say.
Last month, the two countries signed a preliminary accord worth $70 billion
to $100 billion by which China will purchase Iranian oil and gas and help
develop Iran's Yadavaran oil field, near the Iraqi border. Earlier this
year, China agreed to buy $20 billion in liquefied natural gas from Iran
over a quarter-century.
Iran wants trade to grow even further. "Japan is our number one energy
importer for historical reasons . . . but we would like to give preference
to exports to China," Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said this
month, according to China Business Weekly.
In turn, China has become a major exporter of manufactured goods to Iran,
including computer systems, household appliances and cars. "We mutually
complement each other. They have industry and we have energy resources,
" said Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's former representative to the
International Atomic Energy Agency.
China's trade with Iran is weakening the impact on Iranian policy of various
U.S. economic embargoes, analysts here say. "Sanctions are not
effective nowadays because we have many options in secondary markets, like
China," said Hossein Shariatmadari, a leading conservative theorist and
editor of the Kayhan newspapers.
Accurate trade figures are difficult to get, in part because trade is
increasing so rapidly and partly because China's large arms sales to Iran
are not included or publicized. But at the second annual Iran-China trade
fair here in May, Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng said trade
had increased by 50 percent in 2003 over the previous year, according
to the Islamic Republic News Agency.
Beijing has also provided Iran with advanced military technology,
including missile technology, U.S. officials say. In April, the Bush
administration imposed sanctions on Chinese manufacturers of equipment
that can be used to develop weapons of mass destruction.
The Iran-China ties may be partly a response to the United States,
analysts here say. President Bush's strategy has been to contain both
China and the Islamic republic, said Siamak Namazi, a political and
economic analyst, "so that's created natural allies."
The growing presence of U.S. and other Western troops in Central and
South Asia and the Middle East is another joint concern. In the English-
language Kayhan International, Ali Sabzevari wrote in an editorial:
"Politically, the two countries share a common interest in checking
the inroads being made by NATO in Asia. . . . The presence of outsiders
does not bode well for peace and security."
The countries also share concerns over radical Sunni Muslims. Most
Iranians follow the rival Shiite strain of Islam; China has more than
20 million Muslims, and the government has been facing Muslim unrest in
some of its western cities. The dissidents receive support from Islamic
groups in Afghanistan and the countries of former Soviet Central Asia --
the region that straddles both Iran and China.
Islam has historically been a link between the two civilizations. It made
its way to China via Persia, the ancient state that was based in present-day
Iran, Iranians note. Many Chinese Muslims pray in Persian, not Arabic.
Their everyday language is Turkic, but their alphabet is Persian.
But in recent times, ties between China and Iran have not always prospered.
In the midst of the unrest that led to Iran's revolution, one of the
last foreign leaders to visit Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi before he was
overthrown in 1979 was Chinese Communist Party chief Hua Kuo-feng. "The
visit left a very strong negative feeling about China among Iranians,"
said Abbas Maleki, director of the Caspian Institute, a Tehran research
organization.
But today, China with its one-party political system appears to feel fewer
restraints than do Western nations in dealing with the world's only
theocracy. "For China, issues like human rights don't affect your
relations with Iran," Namazi said.
(China Iran treaty)
http://english.people.com.cn/...
(China’s relationship to US debtload)
http://www.uncommonthought.com/mtblog/...
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/...
