May 16-2014
Iranian Defense Minister Hossain Dehqan made an official visit to China this week and Iran reported that China now considers Iran to be its “strategic partner.”
However, the Iran Times could not find any Chinese news service describing Iran that way.
Xinhua, China’s state news agency, said the two countries vowed “to deepen defense cooperation.” But the only specifics it mentioned were “mutual visits” and “personnel training cooperation,” topics way down on most priority lists and unlikely to stir any concern in Washington.
Furthermore, Majlis Deputy Mohammad-Reza Mohseni-Sani, who was part of the Iranian delegation visiting China, told the Tasnim news agency on his return that the two countries did not sign even a single military agreement during the visit. That is very unusual. The Islamic Republic loves to pile up signed memoranda of understanding on its foreign trips, even though they rarely produce anything concrete. But the refusal of China to sign any agreement suggested a preference to keep some distance from the Islamic Republic.
The Islamic Republic, however, painted a different picture. The Fars news agency quoted Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan as saying, “Given Iran’s and China’s common views over many important politico-security, regional and international issues, Beijing assumes Tehran as its strategic partner.”
Nothing anything like that appeared in the Chinese media. The Iranian media have a reputation for putting words into the mouths of foreigners.
John Garver, a professor of international affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology, told McClatchy news, “Too close an association would endanger China’s economically vital relationship with the United States. There are different voices and views within China about how close the China-Iran relationship should be, and how much risk would be entailed by cooperating with Iran against the US.”
China is Iran’s largest purchaser of oil and its biggest trading partner, but there have been economic tensions between them. Tehran this month canceled a $2.5 billion deal with a Chinese company to develop the South Azadegan oilfield. That clearly didn’t win friends in China.