Looks like Mr.Wright's predictions hit the mark!
Iran's New Alliance With China Could Cost U.S.
Leverage
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 17, 2004; Page A21
TEHRAN -- A major new alliance is emerging between Iran and
China that threatens to undermine U.S. ability to pressure Tehran
on its nuclear program, support for extremist groups and refusal to
back Arab-Israeli peace efforts.
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.