From Geostrategy-Direct, subscription. Excerpts:
Since the collapse of the USSR, China is steadily increasing its ties with the mullahs and is now one of Iran's strongest allies as a buffer on the UN Security Council and as a major supplier of technology and other assistance.
In the Asian world of gaining, saving and above all not losing face, Hu Jintao is having a roller coaster of a year. With the Olympics set to open, Chinese the world over are feeling strong surges of pride in their people and nation. As the man presiding over China's communist party and its growing military and economic power, Hu is also hosting the summer games.
But the omens this year have not been particularly good for the boyish-looking dictator what with the uprisings in Tibet and other western provinces, multiple devastating earthquakes, public relations nightmares with the likes of Steven Spielberg disassociating himself from the Olympics over human rights outrages stemming from China's policies in Tibet and Sudan. And then there is the pollution.
And don't forget the water. Beijing is sucking its aquifers dry and moving water from other areas long distances to support the Olympic Spectacle.
As a good communist, Hu has no worries about his rating in public opinion polls. What he does have to worry about is the capitalist revolution thrust upon him by Deng Xiaoping which is shaking the world's economy but, more to the point, raising the expectations of the Chinese people.
Raising expectations is a dangerous thing, when you cannot deliver to everybody.
Therefore a top priority for Hu is keeping the rapid economic growth on track. Another fundamental necessity is keeping the United States from growing overly-concerned about China's rapidly-expanding strategic and military force. In other words, Beijing needs alliances to counterbalance the United States.
Enter Iran.
Iran, North Korea, Burma, Sudan, Zimbabwe/ The list of fine, upstanding allies grows long....*sigh*
Soon after the Ayatollah Khomeini ousted the Shah and took power, the Soviet Union emerged as Iran's strategic and military partner. Currently Russia has been completing work on the nuclear reactor at Bushehr that has been the focus of international scrutiny and diplomacy.
And possible targeting.
But since the collapse of the USSR, China is steadily increasing its ties with the mullahs and is now one of Iran's strongest allies as a buffer on the UN Security Council and as a major supplier of technology and other assistance, as the REALITE-EU newsletter pointed out in a recent report.
Since Iran is a BIG supplier of crude oil to the Chicoms and their economic miracle.
The significance of China-Iran ties could be summarized as follows:
Beijing is indirectly helping Iran's nuclear program by refusing to back hard-line economic sanctions put forward by the UN. China backed limited UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, but like Russia insisted that sanctions be limited to nuclear trade, not general trade including arms and energy. Therefore, China has in effect negated the Security Council's ability to check Iran's nuclear agenda.
As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has the power to veto any measures that put pressure on Iran and its joint interests with China. In 2004, for example, Zhang Yan, China's ambassador to the UN, said: "The Iran nuclear issue should and is completely capable of being resolved within the IAEA's framework, through dialogue, and China is opposed to referring the issue to the UN Security Council." In November 2005, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing similarly told reporters that sanctions "would only make the issue more complicated and difficult to work out."
No teeth, no actions. The UNSC bureaucrats should gobble it up, most of 'em.
As Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of the Iranian newspaper Kayhan put it: "Sanctions are not effective nowadays because we have many options in secondary markets, like China."
A true statement.
It is on the energy front where, for bilateral ties, the rubber meets the road. China's rapidly growing economy means that its energy needs are rapidly increasing, and the expanding consumer economy with more and more private ownership of automobiles is a trend that Hu needs to make sure continues. Hu and the Chinese Communist Party will do almost anything it takes to secure its growing oil supply needs.
Including making deals with axis of evil chaps.
As the second largest oil exporter to China after Saudi Arabia, Iran now sells China about $5.8 billion in oil and petrochemical products, according to the REALITE-EU report.
Over the next seven years, the International Energy Agency projects China relying on the Middle East for 70 percent of its oil imports, up from 44 percent in 2006.
So the Chicoms are setting themselves up with the oil ticks just like the US and Japan have been doing.
China's Sinopec Group has signed a deal worth $100 billion with Iran in what has been called the "deal of century". Sinopec is to buy 250 million tons of natural gas from Iran over 30 years, and will help Iran develop its massive Yadavaran oilfield in exchange for Iran selling 150,000 oil barrels per day to China for 25 years at market prices.
China is also taking advantage of the Iranian market as an outlet for Chinese exports and technology. More than 100 Chinese state companies are operating in Iran to develop infrastructural projects including dam building, cement plants, steel mills, railways, shipbuilding, highways, airports and even public transportation.
It is in Iran's missile development, that China has provided a major boost to Iran.
In the late 1980s, China reportedly transferred HY-2 (Silkworm) anti-ship cruise missiles to Iran, resulting in a U.S. freeze on high-tech transfers to China.
Iran and North Korea reportedly worked together to improve the accuracy of the Chinese C-802, an anti-ship cruise missile with a range of 80 miles that Iran bought from China during the mid-1990s. The Washington Times reported that China signed an $11 million contract with Iran to upgrade Iran's FL-10 anti-ship missile.
In April 2004, despite China's application to join the Missile Technology Control Regime (a voluntary group of 34 countries that share the goal of non-proliferation of WMD delivery systems), the State Department sanctioned five Chinese companies, including Norinco and the China Precision Machinery Import/Export Corporation, for transferring cruise and ballistic missile components and technology to Iran.
Fine, sanction these companies. The Chicoms will just make new ones. I swear, some State folks are dumb or delusional (clinical), or traitors.
In August 2007 leaders from China, Iran and Russia warned the U.S. not to interfere in strategic, resource-rich Central Asia. The implied threat came at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, told the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Near East and South Asian affairs in 2007 about four recent Chinese technology transfers to Iran: anti-ship missiles, air surveillance radars, a fusion reactor and a uranium prospecting operation.
Let the games begin.
The Chicoms think that they can use the Jihadis as a tool against us, but this could also blow up in their faces. |
Russia and China will "definitely not" approve the use of force against Iran over its nuclear programme, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday after meeting with China's leaders. "Russia and China definitely will not vote for a resolution which could be an excuse for the use of force," Lavrov said through a translator after meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Li Zhaoxing, and President Hu Jintao. "We believe we shouldn't isolate Iran or increase pressure. This will not only not reduce the possibility of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, it will have the opposite effect."