US President Joe Biden has called the 25-year agreement between Iran and China worrying.
Reacting to the 25-year Iran-China agreement, US President Joe Biden said on Sunday evening that he had long been concerned about the Iran-China partnership.
“Are you worried about the Iran-China partnership?” “I have been worried about it for a year,” he said.
The document of the comprehensive cooperation plan of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the People’s Republic of China, known as the 25-year plan, was signed on Saturday in Tehran by Mohammad Javad Zarif and “Wang Yi”, the foreign ministers of the two countries.
In 1984, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the People’s Republic of China issued a joint comprehensive strategic statement of the two countries, and the two sides agreed to conclude a comprehensive cooperation program. After consultations and talks on April 28, 1941, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Javad Zarif and the Member of the State Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China Wang Yi signed a “Comprehensive Cooperation Program between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the People’s Republic of China” in Tehran.
This document discusses the capacities and prospects of bilateral cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the People’s Republic of China in various fields, including economic, cultural, etc.
The American media called the signing of the agreement an attempt by Tehran and Beijing to circumvent US sanctions policies and respond to Washington’s confrontational policies against Iran and China.
Deeper and wider cooperation between China and Iran, especially when considered in the context of their close ties with Russia and the trio’s adversarial relations with the US, carries a strong potential for changing the regional strategic landscape. So far, China has been careful not to partner with Iran to an extent that could jeopardise its lucrative relations with the oil-rich Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Iran’s regional archrival) and its Arab allies. In 2019, China imported some 17% of its oil needs from Saudi Arabia alone, not to mention 10% from Iraq, smaller amounts from Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, and only 3% from US-sanctioned Iran. China also enjoys reasonable military and intelligence cooperation with Israel, another main regional adversary of Iran.
However, Beijing’s conclusion of the deal with Tehran, which has been in the making since 2016, is bound to deeply concern the Gulf Arab states, Israel, and indeed the US. These countries are already troubled by a perceived Iranian threat, given Tehran’s expanding influence across the Levant (Iraq, Syria and Lebanon) and Yemen as well as its support for the Palestinian cause against Israeli occupation.
The US is also concerned by Iranian leverage in Afghanistan, where American and allied forces have been fighting the Taliban-led insurgency for two decades without much success, and from which Washington wants to extricate itself with some face-saving measures as soon as possible.
When combined with Iran’s close ties with Russia, the China–Iran deal potentially generates a strong axis that can only boost Tehran’s regional position and bargaining power in any negotiations with the Biden administration regarding the JCPOA. Biden has favoured a return of the US to the JCPOA, but on the condition that Iran restore some of the commitments it withdrew in retaliation for Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement. But Tehran has rejected this condition and demanded that the US first lift all of its sanctions.
Although the two sides have been posturing so far, it will come as no surprise if Tehran holds out until Washington blinks.
The Iranians have traditionally been wary of an alliance with any world power, although during the Shah’s rule their country drifted into the US’s orbit—something that substantially contributed to the consolidation of a situation that caused the revolution and demise of the Shah, bringing to power the anti-US Islamic regime. However, America’s constant hammering to pressure and isolate the Islamic regime, especially under Trump, has steadily driven Tehran to look to the East and to reach the point of concluding the agreement with China.
With Turkey also tilting away from the US towards China and Iran, despite Ankara’s and Tehran’s differences in Syria, the de facto alliances emerging in a strategically and economically vital region of the world poses a greater challenge to the Biden administration than may have been anticipated. If Biden had thought that his main foreign policy targets were going to be Russia and China, the Middle East may prove to be just as difficult to handle.
