Iran’s Relations with China and the West Cooperation and Confrontation in Asia Willem van Kemenade November 2009 NETHERLANDS INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ‘CLINGENDAEL’ CIP-Data Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague Van Kemenade, Willem: Cooperation and Confrontation in Asia: Iran’s Relations with China and the West The Hague, Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’ Clingendael Diplomacy Papers No. 24 ISBN: 978-90-5031-1472 Desktop publishing by Ragnhild Drange Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’ Clingendael Diplomatic Studies Programme Clingendael 7 2597 VH The Hague Telephone +31(0)70 - 3746628 Telefax +31(0)70 - 3746666 P.O. Box 93080 2509 AB The Hague Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.clingendael.nl The Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’ is an independent institute for research, training and public information on international affairs. It publishes the results of its own research projects and the monthly Internationale Spectator and offers a broad range of courses and conferences covering a wide variety of international issues. It also maintains a library and documentation centre. © Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’. All rights reserved. No part of this paper may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright-holders. Clingendael Institute, P.O. Box 93080, 2509 AB The Hague, The Netherlands. Contents Preface 3 1 The Historical and Geo-strategic Setting From the “Old Silk Road” to the New ‘Energy’ Silk Road 7 2 Iran’s Contemporary Relations with the West The Failure of Westernization in the Shah’s Iran 17 3 Iran’s Contemporary Relations with China Cooperative Opposition against US Hegemony but no Alliance 41 4 “Nuclear Brinkmanship” China and the EU-US led Confrontation over Iran’s Nuclear Programme 59 5 The China-Iran Economic Relationship Linking East and West Asia through “Pipelineistan” 105 6 Epilogue 123 Bibliography 127 Appendix: Map of Iran 131 1 2 Preface: The project to study China-Iran relations was conceived immediately after the publication of my “Détente Between China and India: The Delicate Balance of Geopolitics in Asia (Clingendael Diplomacy Papers No. 16) in the autumn of 2008. Based on the triple rationale of containing India, serving as a comrade-in- arms in the struggle against Islamic extremism and a backdoor to the Indian Ocean and the Middle East, Pakistan is the premier strategic ally of China in the world. But since Pakistan is also a ‘fragile’ state, Iran is a welcome additional major partner. Unlike Pakistan it is a natural, cohesive country, an energy superpower and a partner in resisting American domination, sanctions and pressure of which both China and Iran have long been targets. A second incentive to focus on Iran was/is that 2009 marks the 30th anniversary of severed diplomatic relations with the United States. China and the United States re-established diplomatic relations 30 years after the 1949 Chinese Communist revolution in 1979, the year that the Iranian Islamic revolution shook the world. The American rupture with Iran was triggered by the hostage taking of American diplomats by revolutionary thugs in 1979, sanctioned by Grand-Ayatollah Khomeini himself, and has lasted so long mainly because of the lopsided Israel- fixated ideology and diplomacy of successive American administrations. The American absence has paved the way for China to move into Iran in a big way, initially as a major arms supplier during the Iran-Iraq War, then as a supplier of 3 nuclear technology, then as a buyer of oil, then as an industrial power and builder of infrastructure, altogether making China the largest trading partner of Iran. As tensions between China and the United States escalated nearly out of control over China’s support for the Iranian nuclear programme, China made a grand bargain with the Clinton Administration in 1997, terminated this support and Russia took over as the major supplier of nuclear technology and raw materials. Since China’s modus operandi is not yet that of a high profile assertive superpower that takes the lead, Russia has evolved as the main political superpower-ally of Iran with China as a mostly discreet secondary player on the public diplomatic scene, although its role as an economic superpower player is of far more strategic significance. 1 The role of Russia in the long drawn-out multilateral powergame around Iran has been extensively covered but as the primary focus of this book is China-Iran relations, no separate chapter has been included on Russia-Iran relations. After the folly of the Bush years, reflexive, blind support for – almost -- anything Israel does, crippling sanctions against Iran, axis-of-evil rhetoric, threats of invasion, possibly with nuclear weapons, regime change etc., President Barack Obama wants to end three decades of ideo-psychological warfare against and the isolation of Iran, but while initial diplomatic steps were underway, the country plunged into turmoil over the disputed re-election of the hard-line confrontational President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Mass protests, followed by violent repression, show trials of opposition leaders by kangaroo courts, etc. have complicated the Obama initiative, at least temporarily. As part of my project, I had planned a research visit to Tehran, but it took me three months of applications, for different types of visas on each occasion, before I could pack my bags. I arrived in Tehran late in the evening, two days before the June election with Tehran’s urban motorway system clogged with tens of thousands of young people, leaning out of their car windows, the men making V- signs, the women waving their headscarves in shows of defiance to indicate that the days of the strict Islamic dress code were numbered. They were all supporters of moderate presidential hopeful Mir-Hussein Mousavi, displaying a jubilance and euphoria as if the election had already been won. Then two days later came the great anti-climax, when the predetermined election results were announced: Ahmadinejad 63 per cent! Although it was not a Stalinist 90+ figure, for all the people I spoke to, it had zero credibility. 1) For China’s diplomatic strategy see: Willem van Kemenade, China’s Post-Olympic Rise and its place in the Global Concert of Nations, in: Challenges in a Changing World, Clingendael Views on Global and Regional Issues, The Hague, 2008, pp. 85-99. 4 I had not gone to Iran to observe the election, though, but to conduct research for a monograph on China-Iran relations through a series of interviews with Iranian China specialists, government officials, diplomats and Chinese academics working in Iran. For a start, the Netherlands Ambassador to Iran, Radinck van Vollenhoven, kindly hosted a lunch for me, attended by former senior officials of the pre-Ahmadinejad government of the reformist President Mohammed Khatami (1997-2005), diplomats and businessmen. The opposition movement against the election result had gained momentum in a few days and Tehran was in utter chaos. My host organization, assigned to me by the Iranian Embassy in Beijing, was the “Institute of Political and International Studies” (IPIS), which had gained notoriety by hosting the so-called “Holocaust Denial” conference in 2005 (see Chapter 3). I was to deliver a lecture there and they would make arrangements for me with other organizations, but nothing had happened and nobody could be reached. Within a week after the election, all visiting journalists were told to leave; they had come on one-week visas and no visas would be extended. As a visiting academic, I had a one-month visa but with all doors closed, it was meaningless. Chinese academics in Beijing had given me the names of their Iranian counterparts, but again: incommunicado. Some people had agreed to meet me, but then they did not show up and later explained that it was too dangerous on the streets, or that nobody wanted to be seen with a “Westerner” in a hotel or restaurant or that they needed special permission to meet with me which they could not get. It was like China in the 1970s.2 In the hope that the situation would calm down in a week or so, I spent my days surfing the heavily censored internet and cruising the streets of Tehran, watching the protests, but that was becoming increasingly risky indeed. Soon I realized that no effective research was possible and I decided to return to China, via Urumqi, the capital of the Far-Western Xinjiang region, which incidentally a few days after my stopover was in flames as well, as Muslim Uygurs had gone on the rampage against harsh repressive Han-Chinese rule. Back in Beijing, I had to satisfy myself with library and internet research. The main source for the narrative of the 1980s and 1990s is John Garver’s standard work on historical and contemporary relations between China and Iran,3 from which I have quoted extensively, but since this excellent book’s coverage of events does not extend beyond 2004-2005, my sources for the period 2005-2009 are a number of other more recent books, 2) On the 2008 Economist Intelligence Unit’s ‘Democracy Index’, out of 167 countries, China is ranked 136 and Iran 145, although Iran has a “multiparty system”. http://graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy%20Index%202008.pdf 3) John W. Garver, China and Iran, Ancient Partners in a Post-Imperial World, University of Washington Press, 2006. 5 leading newspapers and journals of the world, such as The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Survival, Iranian Studies, etc. and numerous websites. I also had some valuable interviews with Chinese think-tank academics who do not want to be named because of the sensitivities in China-Iran relations.