Despite disputes, Iran fits into a network of alliances built by Beijing on a global scale.
by Frédéric Lemaître (Beijing, correspondent)
While the discovery of “spy balls” revives tensions between Beijing and Washington, China is about to receive one of the worst enemies of the United States: the Iranian president. Ebrahim Raïssi is expected in Beijing from February 14 to 16. At the top of the state since August 2021, he met the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in September 2022, at the Shanghai cooperation organization (OCS) which was held in Uzbekistan.
According to China Daily, a daily newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, “this visit must strengthen the collaboration of the two countries in fields including the economy and sensitive international issues”. According to the Iranian news agency IRNA, China is Tehran’s first economic partner. The two countries signed in March 2021 a strategic cooperation agreement over the age of twenty -five years -whose details have never been made public -, but, after two years, it remains to be concretized. “Progress has been delayed by the Pandemic of Covid-19 and by changes in the surrounding context,” said the Global Times modestly. Like all the Chinese press, it only very marginally evokes the protest movement which has been shaking Iran since September 16, 2022 and the death in Tehran of a student after her arrest by the police of manners for “port of Inappropriate clothing “.
In an article published Monday in Chinese in the daily life of the people, the Iranian president “welcomes initiatives taken by China to promote peace, security and development in the world”. For him, “Iran and China believe that unilateralism and violent measures, such as the imposition of unjust sanctions, are the main source of crises and insecurity in the world”. An attack that explicitly targets Washington.
However, relations between Iran and China are not idyllic. Iran did not see a good eye the historic visit of Xi Jinping in Saudi Arabia in December 2022, nor the first summit between China and the Gulf countries held in Riyadh on this occasion. Especially insofar as the final declaration of this summit indicated that the Gulf States should negotiate with Iran about their litigation on the islands of the Strait of Ormuz. Three islands of this essential maritime passage for global navigation have indeed been controlled by Iran since 1971, but claimed by the United Arab Emirates. Following this declaration, the Chinese ambassador to Iran was summoned by the Iranian authorities to hear their point of view on this subject.
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