Iran growing partnership with China

The planned cooperation deal between Iran and China is partly a result of Tehran's disappointment at the EU's failure to stand up to the United States. But not all Iranians think the arrangement is a good idea.

Iran's FM M Javad Zarif announced in July that China and Iran were in the process of negotiating a 25-year strategic agreement and marking to work together more closely in the coming decades.

The deal is seemingly close to being signed, with The New York Times reporting on it in detail after obtaining a Farsi version of the document. The deal predicts not only an economic partnership worth billions but also close military collaboration.

a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs told that Tehran's move toward Beijing is partly a reaction to the Trump administration's withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement. But the US isn't the only reason, Tehran is also disappointed that the Europeans have not lived up to their economic commitments.

China and Russia have played very pivotal role in saving Iranian economy.At the same time, he said, Iranian politicians increasingly had the impression that US power and international standing had begun to decline under President Donald Trump.

"As such, their understanding is that the best way to preserve Iran's interests in the long run is to define frameworks for long-term partnership with 'non-Western' powers," said Azizi.

But, a senior lecturer of Middle East and comparative politics at the University of Tübingen's Institute of Political Science, believes Iran is negotiating from a weak position. Not only because the government is under enormous economic pressure, but also because the proposed collaboration has met with extensive discontentment in Iran.

Put in place after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Fathollah-Nejad said the agreement runs counter to Iran's aims to establish and maintain independence from both Western and Eastern major powers. He also pointed out that China has a very undesirable image in Iran, where it has been omnipresent since the Europeans withdrew from the country under US pressure.

Together with Russia, Iran has decisively supported Syrian President Bashar Assad throughout the country's civil war and China has consistently backed their actions at the UN Security Council. Would a greater cooperation between Tehran and Beijing lead to consequences elsewhere, boosting other authoritarian regimes?

Azizi doesn't think so, pointing out that such governments don't need outside affirmation. For world powers, he said, the importance of the Middle East has always restricted from its geopolitical situation and its natural resources.

 

Categories: Politics