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February 10, 2006

China and Iran's Nuclear Activities: Caught in the Middle

Stephanie Lieggi

With pressure building to stop Iran's suspected nuclear ambitions, China finds itself in a difficult dilemma. Beijing and Tehran have significant economic ties, primarily in the field of energy. Iran is China's second largest provider of oil and provides an increasing amount of China's natural gas supplies. The Sino-Iranian relationship has been a key link for Beijing in an important, albeit volatile, part of the world. Sanctions or other forms of pressure aimed at getting Iran to cooperate with the IAEA could hamper China's valuable energy source, and Beijing's reaction to the situation will dictate the future ties between Tehran and Beijing. At the same time, the United States and the European Union--two of the loudest voices calling for tougher action against Iran--are China's top two trading partners and two of Beijing's most vital bilateral relationships.

China has stated a clear preference for employing diplomacy over sanctions or other pressure tactics in response to Iran's recent confrontational behavior and has looked to Russia (and to some extent the EU) to take the lead in settling the current standoff. Beijing has tended to avoid getting involved in international rows of this scale. Following this pattern, Beijing has passively played a supporting role to Russia. Beijing has backed a plan proposed by Moscow that would bring Iran's uranium reprocessing to Russian soil--thus removing from Iranian facilities this important step of the fuel cycle that can be used to manufacture fissile material.

By taking a passive approach, Beijing is looking to postpone any difficult choices for as long as possible in hopes that an acceptable outcome may be reached. However, with military options aimed at stopping Tehran's program still under consideration in Washington and elsewhere, Beijing may not be able to remain passive for long. If the conflict was to escalate, China's energy supplies, and its overall economic security, could be severely damaged. Preventing this is Beijing's highest priority.

In a key move to work together with the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Beijing joining the P-5/EU-3 agreement that called for the issue to be sent to the Security Council. Beijing followed that by voting in favor of the related resolution at the IAEA Board of Governors meeting on February 4, 2006. Despite these moves, Beijing remains reluctant to impose significant sanctions on Iran.

The Bush administration will want the Security Council to agree to tough action on Iran, but Washington will need to convince both Beijing and Moscow to not use their veto power to block these moves. Invoking its Security Council veto power in this situation is not a comfortable option for Beijing. Although it may keep relations with Tehran steady, a veto from Beijing would alienate the United States and Europe. A veto might also push Washington closer towards taking even more aggressive moves unilaterally. On another note, if Iran continues its enrichment program in defiance of the international community's objection, then China's use of veto at the UN would greatly tarnish its image as a responsible power upholding the nuclear nonproliferation principles.

China's need to assure its energy supplies with Tehran run essentially counter to Beijing's other foreign and trade policy aspirations. China is still hoping to convince the EU to lift an arms ban put in place after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Beijing has also made substantial efforts to keep Sino-U.S. relations stable, including bowing to U.S. pressure on a number of occasions with regards to Iran. In the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration convinced China to stop nuclear related trade with Iran--a step that has slowed Tehran's nuclear program. Since then, China has made some progress towards stopping the flow of dual-use technology to Iran from Chinese companies. Although many in Washington believe that Beijing's actions up until now vis-à-vis Iran's WMD programs have been far from sufficient, China agrees with the assessments of the other P-5 states that an Iranian nuclear weapon program is detrimental to international security (and thus detrimental to China's overall security.)

Although China's leadership has not appeared enthusiastic about increasing its involvement in the Iranian nuclear issue, Beijing's long-standing ties to Tehran arguably qualify China to play a more decisive role in resolving the current standoff. The ability of European countries to broker a deal is waning. The United States and Iran are not on speaking terms diplomatically, and the rancor between these two countries has made rapprochement an unlikely option. Of the remaining major powers, China and Russia are the most likely options to broker a compromise. However, Russia's own vested interests may conflict with those of China. As time progresses, it may become less productive for Beijing to rely on Moscow's leadership. Only with active participation in resolving this issue can China assure its own strategic needs.

Beijing has shown that it is capable of productive engagement when sufficiently prodded and when the outcome of a situation is adequately vital to China's interests. The crisis that arose over North Korea's nuclear program is a prime example of China's ability to play an effective role in mitigating a deteriorating situation. While the six-party talks dealing with North Korea's nuclear program has had a rough history, the process and Beijing's leading role in it has kept the state of affairs on the Korean peninsula relatively stable.

Iran is not as dependent upon China as North Korea and therefore will be even less pliant to China's influence. However, Tehran still considers Beijing to be a friendly government--at least relative to the other larger world powers--and will likely be responsive to attempted engagement coming from China. By building upon this relationship and its experience with the six-party talk's process, Beijing could nudge the current impasse to a more agreeable resolution.


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