by Pepe Escobar, cross posted with the author’s permission
Iran-China strategic partnership: The big picture
The key takeaway of President Ebrahim Raeisi’s state visit to Beijing goes way beyond the signing of 20 bilateral cooperation agreements.
This is a crucial inflexion point in an absorbing, complex, decades-long, ongoing historical process: Eurasia integration.
Little wonder that President Raeisi, welcomed by a standing ovation at Peking University before receiving an honorary academic title, stressed “a new world order is forming and taking the place of the older one”, characterized by “real multilateralism, maximum synergy, solidarity and dissociation from unilateralisms”.
And the epicenter of the new world order, he asserted, is Asia.
It was quite heartening to see the Iranian president eulogizing the Ancient Silk Road, not only in terms of trade but also as a “cultural bond” and “connecting different societies together throughout history”.
Raeisi could have been talking about Sassanid Persia, whose empire ranged from Mesopotamia to Central Asia, and was the great intermediary Silk Road trading power for centuries between China and Europe.
It’s as if he was corroborating Chinese President Xi Jinping’s famed notion of “people to people exchanges” applied to the New Silk Roads.
And then President Raeisi jump cut to the inescapable historical connection: he addressed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), of which Iran is a key partner.
All that spells out Iran’s full reconnection with Asia – after those arguably wasted years of trying an entente cordiale with the collective West. That was symbolized by the fate of the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal: negotiated, unilaterally buried and then, last year, all but condemned all over gain.
A case can be made that after the Islamic Revolution 44 years ago, a budding “pivot to the East” always lurked behind the official government strategy of “Neither East nor West”.
Starting in the 1990s that happened to progressively enter in full synch with China’s official “Open Door” policy.
After the start of the millennium, Beijing and Tehran have been getting even deeper in synch. BRI, the major geopolitical and geoeconomic breakthrough, was proposed in 2013, in Central Asia and Southeast Asia.
Then, in 2016, President Xi visited Iran, in West Asia, leading to the signing of several memoranda of understanding (MOU), and recently the wide-ranging 25-year comprehensive strategic agreement – consolidating Iran as a key BRI actor.
Accelerating all key vectors
In practice, Raeisi’s visit to Beijing was framed to accelerate all manner of vectors in Iran-China economic cooperation – from crucial investments in the energy sector (oil, gas, petrochemical industry, pipelines) to banking, with Beijing engaged in advancing modernizing reforms in Iran’s banking sector and Chinese banks opening branches across Iran.
Chinese companies may be about to enter the emerging Iranian commercial and private real estate markets, and will be investing in advanced technology, robotics and AI across the industrial spectrum.
Sophisticated strategies to bypass harsh, unilateral US sanctions will be a major focus every step of the way in Iran-China relations. Barter is certainly part of the picture when it comes to trading Iranian oil/gas contracts for Chinese industrial and infrastructure deals.
It’s quite possible that Iran’s sovereign wealth fund – the National Development Fund of Iran – with holdings at estimated $90 billion, may be able to finance strategic industrial and infrastructure projects.
Other international financial partners may come in the form of the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) and the NDB – the BRICS bank, as soon as Iran is accepted as a member of BRICS+: that may be decided this coming August at the summit in South Africa.
The heart of the matter of the strategic partnership is energy. The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) pulled out of a deal to develop Phase 11 of Iran’s South Pars gas field, adjacent to Qatar’s section.
Yet CNPC can always come back for other projects. Phase 11 is currently being developed by the Iranian energy company Petropars.
Energy deals – oil, gas, petrochemical industry, renewables – will boom across what I dubbed Pipelineistan in the early 2000s.
Chinese companies will certainly be part of new oil and gas pipelines connecting to the existing Iranian pipeline networks and configuring new pipeline corridors.
Already established Pipelineistan includes the Central Asia-China pipeline, which connects to China’s West-East pipeline grid, nearly 7,000 km from Turkmenistan to the eastern China seaboard; and the Tabriz-Ankara pipeline (2,577 km, from northwest Iran to the Turkish capital).
Then there’s one of the great sagas of Pipelineistan: the IP (Iran-Pakistan) gas pipeline, previously known as the Peace Pipeline, from South Pars to Karachi.
The Americans did everything in the book – and off the books – to stall it, delay it or even kill it. But IP refused to die; and the China-Iran strategic partnership could finally make it happen.
A new geostrategic architecture
Arguably, the central node of the China-Iran strategic partnership is the configuration of a complex geostrategic economic architecture: connecting the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the flagship of BRI, to a two-pronged Iran-centered corridor.
This will take the form of a China-Afghanistan-Iran corridor and a China-Central Asia-Iran corridor, thus forming what we may call a geostrategic China-Iran Economic Corridor.
Beijing and Tehran, now on overdrive and with no time to lose, may face all manner of challenges – and threats – from the Hegemon; but their 25-year strategic deal does honor historically powerful trading/ merchant civilizations now equipped with substantial manufacturing/ industrial bases and with a serious tradition in advanced scientific innovation.
The serious possibility of China-Iran finally configuring what will be a brand new, expanded strategic economic space, from East Asia to West Asia, central to 21st century multipolarity, is a geopolitical tour de force.
Not only that will completely nullify the US sanction obsession; it will direct Iran’s next stages of much needed economic development to the East, and it will boost the whole geoeconomic space from China to Iran and everyone in between.
This whole process – already happening – is in many aspects a direct consequence of the Empire’s “until the last Ukrainian” proxy war against Russia.
Ukraine as cannon fodder is rooted in Mackinder’s heartland theory: world control belongs to the nation that controls the Eurasian land mass.
This was behind World War I, where Germany knocking out Russia created fear among the Anglo-Saxons that should Germany knock out France it would control the Eurasian land mass.
WWII was conceived against Germany and Japan forming an axis to control Europe, Russia and China.
The present, potential WWIII was conceived by the Hegemon to break a friendly alliance between Germany, Russia and China – with Iran as a privileged West Asia partner.
Everything we are witnessing at this stage spells out the US trying to break up Eurasia integration.
So it’s no wonder that the three top existential “threats” to the American oligarchy which dictates the “rules-based international order” are The Three Sovereigns: China, Russia and Iran.
Does that matter? Not really. We have just seen that while the dogs (of war) bark, the Iran-China strategic caravan rolls on.
Raisi in Beijing: Iran-China strategic plans go full throttle
The visit of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Beijing and his face-to- face meeting with counterpart Xi Jinping is a groundbreaking affair in more ways than one.
Raisi, the first Iranian president to officially visit China in 20 years, led an ultra high-level political and economic delegation, which included the new Central Bank governor and the Ministers of Economy, Oil, Foreign Affairs, and Trade.
The fact that Raisi and Xi jointly supervised the signing of 20 bilateral cooperation agreements ranging from agriculture, trade, tourism and environmental protection to health, disaster relief, culture and sports, is not even the major take away.
This week’s ceremonial sealing of the Iran-China comprehensive strategic partnership marks a key evolution in the multipolarity sphere: two Sovereigns – both also linked by strategic partnerships with Russia – imprinting to their domestic audiences and also to the Global South their vision of a more equitable, fair and sustainable 21st century which completely bypasses western dictates.
Beijing and Tehran first established their comprehensive strategic partnership when Xi visited Iran in 2016 – only one year after the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iranian nuclear deal.
In 2021, Beijing and Tehran signed a 25-year cooperation deal which translated the comprehensive partnership into practical economic and cultural developments in several fields, especially energy, trade and infrastructure. By then, not only Iran (for decades) but also China were being targeted by unilateral US sanctions.
Here is a relatively independent analysis of the challenges and prospects of the 25-year deal. And here is an enlightening perspective from neighboring Pakistan, also a strategic partner of China.
Iran: gotta modernize everything
Beijing and Tehran are already actively cooperating in the construction of selected lines of Tehran’s subway, the Tehran-Isfahan high-speed railway, and of course joint energy projects. Chinese tech giant Huawei is set to help Tehran to build a framework for a 5G telecom network.
Raisi and Xi, predictably, stressed increased joint coordination at the UN and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which Iran is the newest member, as well as a new drive along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
While there was no explicit mention of it, underlying all these initiatives is the de-dollarization of trade – in the framework of the SCO but also the multipolar BRICS group of states. Iran is set to become one of the new members of BRICS+, a giant step to be decided in their upcoming summit in South Africa next August.
There are estimates in Tehran that Iran-China annual trade may reach over $70 billion in the mid-term, which will amount to triple the current figures.
When it comes to infrastructure building, Iran is a key BRI partner. The geostrategy of course is hard to match: a 2,250 km coastline encompassing the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, Sea of Oman and the Caspian Sea – and huge land borders with Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Every think tank in China sees how Iran is irreplaceable, not only in terms of BRI land corridors, but also the Maritime Silk Road.
Chabahar Port may be a prime Iran-India affair, as part of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) – thus directly linked to the Indian vision of a Silk Road, extending to Central Asia.
But Chinese port developers do have other ideas, focused on alternative ports along the Persian Gulf and in the Caspian Sea. That will boost shipping connections to Central Asia (Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan), Russia and the Caucasus (Azerbaijan).
And that makes perfect sense when one combines port terminal development with the modernization of Iran’s railways – all the way to high-speed rail.
An even more revolutionary development would be China coordinating the BRI connection of an Iranian corridor with the already in progress 3,200 km-long China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), from Kashgar in Xinjiang to Gwadar port in the Indian Ocean.
That seemed perfectly plausible when Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was still in power, before being ousted by a lawfare coup. The key of the whole enterprise is to build badly needed infrastructure in Balochistan, on both sides of the border. On the Pakistani side, that would go a long way to smash CIA-fed “insurgents” of the Balochistan Liberation Army kind, get rid of unemployment, and put trade in charge of economic development.
Afghanistan of course enters the equation – in the form of a China-Afghan-Iran corridor linked to CPEC. Since September 2021, Beijing has explained to the Taliban, in detail, how they may profit from an infrastructure corridor – complete with railway, highway and pipeline – from Xinjiang, across the Wakhan corridor in eastern Afghanistan, through the Hindu Kush, all the way to Iran.
The core of multipolarity
Iran is perfectly positioned for a Chinese-propelled boom in high-speed cargo rail, connecting Iran to most of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan).
That means, in practice, cool connectivity with a major logistics cluster: the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of Khorgos, only 330 km from Almaty on the Kazakh-China border, and only four hours from Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital.
If China pulls that off, it would be a sort of BRI Holy Grail, interconnecting China and Iran via Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Nothing less than several corridors in one.
All that is about to happen as the Islamic Revolution in Iran celebrates its 44th year.
What is already happening now, geopolitically, and fully recognized by China, might be defined as the full rejection of an absurdity: the collective west treating Iran as a pariah or at best a subjugated neo-colony.
With the diverse strands of the Resistance embedded in the Islamic Revolution finally consolidated, it looks like history is finally propelling Iran as one of the key poles of the most complex process at work in the 21st century: Eurasia integration.
So 44 years after the Islamic Revolution, Iran enjoys strategic partnerships with the three top BRICS: China, Russia and India.
Likely to become one of the first new members of BRICS+, Iran is the first West Asian state to become a full member of the SCO, and is clinching a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).
Iran is a major strategic partner of both BRI, led by China, and the INSTC, alongside Russia and India.
With the JCPOA all but dead, and all western “promises” lying in the dust, Tehran is consolidating its pivot back to the East at breakneck speed.
What Raisi and Xi sealed in Beijing heralds Chinese pre-eminence all across West Asia – keenly perceived in Beijing as a natural consequence of recognizing and honoring Iran’s regional centrality.
Iran’s “Look East” strategy could not be more compatible with BRI – as an array of BRI projects will accelerate Iran’s economic development and consolidate its inescapable role when it comes to trade corridors and as an energy provider.
During the 1980s Tehran was ruled by a “Neither East nor West” strategy – faithful to the tenets of the Islamic Revolution. That has now evolved, pragmatically, into “Look East.” Tehran did try to “Look West” in good faith, but what the US government did with the JCPOA – from its murder to “maximum pressure” to its aborted resuscitation – was quite a historical lesson.
What Raisi and Xi have just demonstrated in Beijing is the Sovereign way forward. The three leaders of Eurasia integration – China, Russia and Iran – are fast on their way to consolidate the core of multipolarity.
source: https://thecradle.co/article-view/21548/raisi-in-beijing-iran-china-strategic-plans-go-full-throttle
People (like me) who are somewhat familiar with Central Asia and who like tons of tourists have traveled along the Pamir “trakt”, the Silk Road segments on Pamir, mostly Tajikistan, from Kyrgyzstan, to Uzbekistan, are familiar with the huge road cargo trucks driving from China (Kashgar, Ürümqi) to Sary-Tash (KG). Despite sometimes very bad roads, that’s an important road corridor with an optional branch to Iran through Turkmenistan or in case Afghanistan is stabilized, via Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat.
Basically it’s a new possible iteration and revival of the Persian-Tokharian/Sogdian-Chinese trade in Antiquity. “westerners” as in “anglo-saxons” are totally out of the History.
From the incredibly long term Chinese perspective the Anglo-Saxons have always been insignificant; a few minor barbarian tributary states of the former Ta-ch’in empire (Rome). I once discussed my British ethnicity with a group of Chinese elders and they all looked entirely disinterested, until I mentioned that I had been raised in An-hsi (Persia) at which point they sat forward in their seats, and questioned me at length. Parthia, or Iran, has always been accorded the highest respect and admiration by the Chinese.
@ Pepe
Muito Obrigado, Pepe, as always, for the double wham.
Pepe is now flying high up in the clouds of the newborn multipolar Eurasian landmass, looking down onto what in the year 2000, when he coined the term “Pipelineistan,” was only a dream.
He is among the first ones that saw the upcoming potential, through the turbulent years of the “War on Terror,” Middle East invasions, Chechnya wars, 9/11, the “New Middle East,” etc.
Other things being equal, short of WWIII or an attack by the Hegemon plus its Bastard Child, Iran’s full potential as a West Asian power will come through as the Islamic Revolution turns 50 y/o.
The “Look East” pivot has given Iran’s centrality in the “War of Economic Corridors,” a defining position among the other Sovereign states, becoming a crucial hub in the jigsaw of Eurasian interconnectivity, a hallmark of the new multipolar world.
The “War of Economic Corridors” is not so much a war per se, but a race to build a transportation and communication network of highspeed railways and highways. China’s BRI will be moving at highspeed throughout the Eurasian landscape, and networking on 5G.
Iran, since the revolution, was forced to make a large investment in defense, and made good use of the sanctions by developing their own MIC, now capable of exporting drones by the thousands, and put ballistic missiles a few meters from US GIs. Defense took a large chunk of their national treasure, which compounded with the sanctions, forced Iran to live on a survival economy.
That might be coming to an end with the fresh investments from China and Russia, developing all sectors of the Iranian economy. Last May during my visit to Iran, I was amazed at the amount of commercial trucks on the road Tehran – Isfahan for miles on end, and the INSTC had not been opened yet. The geopolitical and economic Quad, Russia, China, Iran, and India, will give Iran’s economy a powerful oxygenation, which may catapult Iran out of the survival economy.
That, if they are able to quash their internal enemy, corruption.
Overall, Iran’s future, from Pepe’s optics, looks bright…other things being equal.
Lone Wolf
You can see why USUKisrael really really wants to smash Iran. The Ukraine was not enough. Banning Berlin from being buddies with Russia was not enough. Asia must be torn apart. I hope Asia succeeds.
The crushing disappointment in this entire portrayal of Iran and Russia as being enemies is that it was so unnecessary. For years, decades even, both nations asked, even begged, for acceptance into the western block. They were spurned. And now they really are enemies. They are both looking elsewhere, and where else to look but eastward to China. In addition, and in spite of all those sanctions, they have both developed a formidable military ability.
That’s an own goal to the west. Compound that own goal with the results of the electoral coup of 2020 and what that has wrought, and it’s becoming apparent to all the world that in the manufactured crisis of the west vs the rest, the rest wins and the west loses.
I totally agree Hal, that it was all so unnecessary. The benefits to Western nations directly connected to the Asian land mass would be enormous, and not only because East is where all the resources are to maintain 21st century societies. Tourism too would bring great value, not only financially, but culturally also. The thought that I could get on a train in North West England, and albeit with changes, go to Vladivostok via Turkey/Iran, and return by a different route, taking in a detour to Lhasa, was mind boggling. Sadly, it looks like the Greed of some don’t want to let this happen, and are doing all that they can to destroy what could’ve been a good thing.
“East or West”, pragmatic alliances are built on interests: interests have their consequences – a historic lesson we all need to learn from.
https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/
Despite the rosy language, Pepe if you read in between the lines, is frank about very slow progress in this partnership, one major reason being that China abides by US unilateral sanctions. Unless the US lifts sanctions or by some miracle falls apart, China will continue at its snail’s pace, buying cheap oi in exchange for cheap consumer goods. This is why Iran begged the US to lift sanctions, knowing that the key is in Washington, not Peking. As long as selfish national interest prevail, so will the US. Divide and conquer, they will. China will not confront the US alone. Iran may be subverted like the Ukraine, given that the only hope Iranians has is for the US to fall apart, and that hope is very slim. China effectively is a US vassal for now, though a bit disobed at times.
> China abides by US unilateral sanctions. Unless the US lifts sanctions or by some miracle falls apart, China will continue at its snail’s pace
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sanctions work in the dollar-euro realm. That’s why dissident countries slowly build trade ties outside this scheme. US sanctions and embargoes don’t produce any usable effect in the short to medium term, which gives time to build alternatives.
In case of Cuba it’s probably not possible, the island is geographically stuck.
In the case of Iran, it is now backed by Russia and as the article reminds of Iran is one of the options in new “silk road” trade.
India takes advantage of the NATO-Russia war by buying cheap oil and reinforcing its own trade interests. All together there is a Russia-Iran-India trade where currency is rupee, emirates dirham, ruble, whatever but western ones. This is outside the realm of sanctions.
NATO tries to physically impeach trade by forbidding companies to insure tankers carrying russian freight but that also is worked around by either separate ad hoc insurance schemes and/or own float of tankers.
China and India are in conflict, but otherwise similar interest, separately each, with trade axes Russia-Iran.
China is under sanctions itself, in the micro-chips technology, USA wants to impeach China’s growth as a main high precision chips manufacturer. China has been working and investing quite in R&D in this industry in order to become self-sufficient which is partially done. China is otherwise an important violator of western “intellectual property”, as Russia may become too if it finally cuts ties with WTO.
Meanwhile China abides to some US decided sanctions, as a way to slow american levels of aggression in the financial realm.
So in the end it’s about how slow/fast you move eggs from one basket into another, smoothly, in order to avoid abrupt reactions and until you reach a threshold where you can operate a pivot with less impacting disagreements.
A game of go.
That said it could be discussed also if an abrupt all-at-once divorce of China from the West, by getting in tight block with Russia also at the military level, may not be better.
I mean hypothetically a China-Russia block, with joint military presence in Donbass, bombing of the american base in al-Tanf in Syria, etc.
Because then NATO would have two war fronts and still the nuclear thread hanging over its head.
Resilience levels are much lower among western populations than chinese and russian ones.
It is far worse. China has a joint communique with the GCC (mideast NATO) condemning Iran for terrorism and backing illegitimate claim by British fabricates sheikhdom of UAE. Imagine Iran supporting Taiwan independence and condemning Chinese terorrism and genocide of Uyghurs. China is solely motivate by greed with no principles, unlike Russia.China has invested 100 times more in Saudi than Iran so far. So this whole partnership is just a joke, and shows how desperate Iran has become.
China always plays on all boards of go, keeping its typicall soft stance with everyone.
Of course China has invested 100 time more in Saudi Arabia, it’s in scale with what Saudi Arabi weights in money, relatively to Iran.
But the partnerships with Iran, despite much smaller in scale are real. As well as these long lines of road cargos driving on Pamir.
The land road China-Caspian is way more secure once Afghanistan is stabilized.
it has also the advantage to not be easily subverted by UK and USA. By now still some, but the Arabic Gulf route is much more risky.
As greedy as China can be, they know very well that USA wants to crush them.
@ Unbornawakened on February 20, 2023 · at 6:29 am EST/EDT
It is far worse. China has a joint communique with the GCC (mideast NATO) condemning Iran for terrorism and backing illegitimate claim by British fabricates sheikhdom of UAE. Imagine Iran supporting Taiwan independence and condemning Chinese terorrism and genocide of Uyghurs. China is solely motivate by greed with no principles, unlike Russia.China has invested 100 times more in Saudi than Iran so far. So this whole partnership is just a joke, and shows how desperate Iran has become.
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Only full ignorance of the intricacies of diplomacy, of the nuances of Chinese diplomatic mores, and of the geopolitical context in which both countries act and develop their relationship, lead to this kind of statements.
We’ve been there, debated that, and the bus already left the station.
At Pepe Escobar’s
/xi-of-arabia-and-the-petroyuan-drive/
Xi of Arabia and the Petroyuan drive
there was this comment, similar to yours,
/xi-of-arabia-and-the-petroyuan-drive/#comment-1164877
to which I replied,
/xi-of-arabia-and-the-petroyuan-drive/#comment-1164906
and AHH added,
/xi-of-arabia-and-the-petroyuan-drive/#comment-1164910
followed-up by a comment from the poster that originated the thread,
/xi-of-arabia-and-the-petroyuan-drive/#comment-1164911
with an excellent post that I missed at that time from Amir-A, closing and balancing the whole guacamole,
/xi-of-arabia-and-the-petroyuan-drive/#comment-1165129
As you can see, the issue has already been debated, you missed the bus.
The underpinning of your comment is that Iran is desperate for relations and needs China. Wrong. If you would have followed the “War of Economic Corridors,” part of the jigsaw of interconnections in the nascent multipolar world, you’d have realized Iran’s strategic geopolitical position is vital for China, as Russia is already showing with the INSTC.
As for your comments re: China’s “greed,” no one would blame any country for developing relations based on their interests.
Lone Wolf
If Iran had supported Taiwanese and Uyghur independence in an official statement issued together with SK and Japan, and Xi Ping rushed to Tehran to sign a partnership agreement, what would you think of China?
I don’t blame China for bowing to US unilateral sanctions, and being greedy. Russia was no different until recently. If US sanctions China like Russia, China will beg Iran but not until then.
Iran depends for its lifeline on China so even if China kicks Iran in the butt, Iran will have no choice but to bow to China and thank it for not shooting it.
I am not happy about this situation. But I am no fool. The partnership is just about cheap oil bartered for cheap goods … until US kicks Chinese ass real hard, and tells Sau and UAE to confiscate its investments, freezes Chinese assets, etc, but the US will not dare to do so.
Also, as long as China bows to US sanc and demands that Iran fall into the JCPOA trap again, it deserves to be kicked in the butt real hard, and the US deserves to continue to rule the world, and will continue to do so. Placing hope in China for a grandiose part is even more misguided than having placed hope in the EU to abide by the JCPOA after Trump’s exit. Unfortunately, due to its anti Israeli rhetoric, Iran will never be allowed to breathe or prosper by the US. Hoping that US lackeys such as subservient EU or vociferously-in-denial China will “make Iran great again” is just for show . Probably meant to give some hope to those who have no hope in the future of Iran as is, but no one is fooled. It is just preaching to the converted, the few who need illusions or opium to ease the pain. Unfortunately, this probably means Iran will fall into the US camp after an uprising. China may regret it one day, but it will be too late. For these reasons, all those who see things as they are will conclude is that Iran can only prosper if it aligns with US and Israel just as during tha Shah. It is saddening but bo one is coming to the rescue of Iran. Russia could also in time face similar challenges. All they is because those who rail against the US, like China, didn’t walk the talk.