As the stalemate continues in negotiations with the United States on the nuclear deal, Iran signs an economic and strategic cooperation pact with China that strengthens Beijing’s growing and extensive influence in the Middle East.
With a ceremony broadcast live on national television, on Saturday afternoon the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, signed the partnership agreement on which the two countries have been working since 2016, when the president’s sight Chinese Xi Jinping opened a new phase in relations with Iran.
China is one of the country’s largest trading partners and a long-standing ally, in 2016 it had already decided to increase the volume of bilateral trade by more than 10 times to $ 600 billion in a decade. With the United States abandoning the Joint Comprehensive Pact of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 and the consequent withdrawal from Iran of much of the European investments, China has become the lifeline for the Iranian economy. suffocated by sanctions and international isolation. It is the first buyer of Iranian oil: in the last 14 months about 300,000 barrels a day have flown to China from Tehran, according to an analysis by Reuters, 75% of these supplies were passed off as “indirect” imports, ie as oil from Oman, the United Arab Emirates or Malaysia to circumvent US sanctions.
Infrastructure and technologies for oil
The text of the agreement has not yet been released, but the drafts that circulated last year spoke of 400 billion Chinese investments in 25 years in exchange for Iranian oil at discounted prices. There are dozens of investment sectors, including banks, telecommunications, ports, railways, information technologies and even military cooperation. Only in the next few months will it really be understood how many and which of the agreed projects will be applied, considering that several times the investments promised by China have not materialized or have only partially materialized, but the agreement is a significant step forward in Sino-relations. Iranians, and comes at a time of tension in relations between Beijing and Washington.
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The former US secretary of state during the Trump presidency, Mike Pompeo, had defined the agreement as a “danger” capable of destabilizing the region. The Biden administration has not yet commented, but Yi’s arrival in Tehran was preceded by a phone call with Robert Malley, the US special envoy for Iran. China, which is one of the six signatory countries of the JCPO, has firmly asked the United States to respect the pacts.
Before Zarif, Yi met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Ali Larijani, the powerful former speaker of Parliament that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has appointed as a special envoy for China, demonstrating how much the Iranian leadership points to the alliance with Beijing for break the international isolation and counterbalance the American presence in the region. Zarif spoke of a “historic” signature. Hesamoddin Ashena, one of President Rouhani’s main advisers, called the agreement “an example of successful diplomacy”.
The Chinese advance in the Middle East
For China, the agreement with Iran is part of a more complex puzzle concerning its presence in the Middle East. The partial US disengagement from the region has opened up new spaces that Beijing is occupying. Wang Yi arrived in Tehran after being in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and before flying to the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain. A regional tour to strengthen bilateral relations and to discuss a possible free trade agreement with the Gulf countries that Beijing has been pursuing for some time. China is already the first buyer of Middle Eastern oil and the first country for foreign direct investment in the region. So far it has moved with dexterity between different interests, trying not to create tensions with the Sunni countries of the Gulf, Emiratis and Saudis are the first commercial partners in the area. But Iran is a strategic corridor to Central Asia and Europe. The signing on Saturday testifies to the desire to fully include Tehran in its ambitious “plan of the century”, the strategic-commercial expansion project that we know as the new Silk Road.
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