a post by Daniel Markey for the OUP blog
The depth of ties between China and Iran was revealed dramatically in late February 2020, when news broke that some of Tehran’s most senior officials had contracted the coronavirus. By early March, one of Iran’s vice presidents, the deputy health minister, and 23 members of parliament were reported ill. A member of the 45-person Expediency Council charged with advising Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei died, and even the head of Iran’s coronavirus task force is sick. After China and Italy, Iran has more confirmed deaths from the virus than any other nation.
Yet this episode is only the latest indication of intensified relations between China and Iran. Over the past two decades, their links have deepened along strategic, commercial, technological, and political dimensions.
Leaders in Tehran and Beijing often invoke their 2,000 years of peaceful civilizational ties. The two nations were undeniably connected by the famous caravan routes of the Silk Road in ancient times, but their strategic relationship really dates to the 1980s, when China opportunistically sold arms to both sides in the Iran-Iraq War. China’s military support to Iran has waxed and waned over the subsequent decades, but it is clear that critical advances in Iran’s missile programs owe much to Chinese technologies, and the US intelligence community remains convinced that Chinese networks continue to provide sensitive defence materials to Iran in spite of international sanctions. Over the past several years, Beijing and Tehran have expanded their military partnership to include a series of joint exercises and a military cooperation agreement signed in 2016. As China’s defence industry matures and overtakes Russia’s, Iran has every incentive to continue its investments in Chinese arms.
Continue reading
Labels:
international_trade, commercial_relationships, Iran, China,
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment