Iran-China Alliance Threatens Peace and Stability

 
The growing alliance between Iran and China is a threat to regional peace and stability, foreign affairs experts have stated. Both these countries are autocratic regimes with censorship on mass media. Both China and Iran regard the United States of America and NATO as their geopolitical opponents. There are allegations of widespread human rights violations in both China and Iran.

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi made a high-profile tour to China and received an official welcome from his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on 14 February. This is the first state visit by an Iranian president to China in 20 years. As part of a three-day visit, high-ranking delegations of Tehran and Beijing signed 20 agreements to further boost mutual cooperation in different security, economic, and infrastructure sectors.

Apart from the newly inked documents, it seems that the main agenda for President Raisi's visit is to finalise mechanisms for implementing the strategic 25-year agreement, the deal that was signed in 2021 but has failed to meet Iran's economic expectations. In the meeting with Xi, Raisi emphasized that the implementation of the strategic 25-year partnership between Iran and China is vital to improving bilateral relations and maintaining stability in the region. President Xi, on his part, underscored the need for implementing the strategic agreement between the two countries, noting that his country strongly opposes external forces interfering in Iran's domestic affairs and the crippling measures taken by Western countries. Despite the United States' (US) bid to hit Iran's economy, China has remained Iran's biggest oil buyer and top trade partner over recent years with a total trade volume of more than US$25 billion. Yet, any promising outlook in the Iran-China partnership still remains strained by multiple hurdles and uncertainties.

Technically speaking, although China plays a pivotal role in breaking Iran's sanctions, without the revival of JCPOA-commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal-it is almost unlikely to implement the large economic projects of the 25-year agreement with China. By becoming more active in the JCPOA revival negotiations, China can help resolve this impasse and open a way to lift sanctions. According to the South China Morning Post, Iran's nuclear deal is seen to be high on the agenda of Raisi-Xi talks. In this regard, Chinese President Xi Jinping told his Iranian counterpart that China will continue to participate constructively in the negotiations to revive the nuclear deal.

According to Iranian experts, however, revitalizing the nuclear agreement is not China's strategic choice in siding with Iran against the West, but is more influenced by their rising concern about a nuclear Iran. China is now facing the threat of nuclearization of Japan and South Korea and has-to some extent-the same concern over the Iranian nuclear program. Moreover, China considers the JCPOA issue to be more of a tension between Iran and the West. China's policy toward Iran's nuclear deal is primarily influenced by the economic benefits that revitalizing of JCPOA could deliver in implementing large trade and energy contracts with Iran. Therefore, if the JCPOA is not revived, China's economic and energy interests could be endangered due to growing tension between Iran and its Arab rivals in the Persian Gulf. China supplies around 30 percent of its energy needs from the Persian Gulf region.

Seemingly the 'no war, no peace' formula in the Iran-US quagmire has been the preferred scenario of the Chinese, as long as Iran does not become a nuclear threshold state. Over the past years, a sanctioned Iran with limited nuclear activities has provided significant economic benefits to China. According to some unverified leaked details of the 25-year strategic cooperation agreement between Iran and China, Beijing buys Iran's oil and gas at a 30 percent discount and has a two-year deadline to repay. Another point is that China can repay its oil debt with the Chinese Yuan. Another economic concession given to China is that two-thirds of the oil and gas purchase amount will be cash and one-third will be in the form of goods and services, or in other words, the exchange of oil for goods. If the JCPOA is revived, China will likely be deprived of these advantages.