Iran-China Relations: Separating Fact from Fiction

The leaking in recent months of an alleged 25-year economic and military cooperation agreement between China and Iran has sparked intense debate among Western and Middle Eastern policymakers, pundits and journalists. If indeed signed, the agreement would significantly alter the balance of power in the Middle East, potentially draw China into the Saudi–Iranian conflict, and add one more dimension to tension between the United States and China. The impact of a signed agreement would be magnified by the likely failure of US attempts to persuade the United Nations Security Council to extend an arms embargo that prevents Iran from acquiring conventional weapons.

Discussion about the alleged draft agreement inevitably involves debate about China’s evolving Middle East policy. Broadly, two camps have emerged in the debate about what is real and what is shadow boxing in reports about the agreement. One school of thought takes the reported draft at face value and focuses on what it would mean for the Middle East as a region as well as individual Middle Eastern states. The other school sees the leaking of the alleged draft as a tactic employed by Iran and China in a bid to advance their separate objectives. Middle East Institute scholars James M Dorsey and Asif Shuja will discuss the two different camps. In doing so, they will provide a basis for discussion of Iran’s and China’s perspectives on creating a regional security architecture in the region that could reduce tension and help ensure that regional conflicts do not spin out of control.