{"id":42605,"date":"2014-05-12T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2014-05-12T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=42605"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:35:01","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:35:01","slug":"china-iran-say-theyre-strategic-partners-as-u-s-watches-warily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/05\/china-iran-say-theyre-strategic-partners-as-u-s-watches-warily\/","title":{"rendered":"China, Iran Say They\u2019re \u2018Strategic Partners\u2019 as U.S. Watches Warily"},"content":{"rendered":"

6 May 2014 – <\/em>China and Iran announced this week that they\u2019re deepening their military ties, with Tehran going so far as to claim that China now sees Iran as a \u201cstrategic partner.\u201d<\/p>\n

The announcement came as Hossein Dehqan, Iran\u2019s minister of defense and armed forces logistics, prepared to conclude a four-day visit Wednesday in Beijing, where he met his Chinese counterpart, Chang Wanquan. It also came amid a clash between the United States and China over alleged assistance by Chinese businesses to Iran\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n

On April 29, the U.S. State Department issued a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a Chinese businessman, Li Fangwei, also known as \u201cKarl Lee,\u201d who was indicted in 2009 on charges of using U.S. financial institutions to help Iran sidestep U.S. sanctions.<\/p>\n

That same day, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on eight of Li\u2019s Chinese businesses, an action that prompted a strong response from Chinese officials. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said, \u201cChina resolutely opposes the U.S. citing domestic laws to unilaterally impose sanctions on Chinese companies or individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both authoritarian governments, China and Iran share some common interests, including standing up to U.S. influence in the Middle East and Asia. Even so, Sino-Persian relations have wavered over the years, with China helping Iran militarily at times but trying to keep a low profile.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo close an association would endanger China\u2019s economically vital relationship with the United States,\u201d said John Garver, a professor of international affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. \u201cThere are different voices and views within China about how the close the China-Iran relationship should be, and how much risk would be entailed by cooperating with Iran against the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

China is Iran\u2019s largest purchaser of oil and its biggest trading partner, but there have been recent economic tensions between them. Last week Tehran canceled a $2.5 billion deal with a Chinese company to develop the enormous Azadegan oil field in the southwest of Iran. The Chinese state company reportedly had delayed in meeting its contract obligations.<\/p>\n

Garver says the warm-up in military ties between the countries might have something to do with the failed oil field contract. \u201cIt is not uncommon for China to ratchet up cooperation in some areas when problems arise in others,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Dehqan arrived Sunday in Beijing, China\u2019s Xinhua news service reported Monday. State media ran photos of Dehqan and Chang in uniform, and quoted Chang as saying he\u2019s confident that \u201cthe friendly relations between the two countries as well as the armed forces will be reinforced.\u201d<\/p>\n

An Iranian news story went further, attributing a quote that offered a more sweeping description of the relationship to Chang that Chinese state media didn\u2019t report.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven Iran and China\u2019s common views over many important political-security, regional and international issues, Beijing assumes Tehran as its strategic partner,\u201d Chang was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency, which is thought to have links with Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards.<\/p>\n

The United States closely watches China\u2019s relationship with Tehran, partly because of a temporary deal struck in November that would relieve Iran of about $7 billion in sanctions in return for restraining its nuclear activities. While China publicly opposes any attempt by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, it has a long history of helping Tehran develop its missile systems and nuclear reactors.<\/p>\n

Starting in the 1980s, China assisted Iran with construction of a research reactor and later a uranium hexafluoride enrichment plant. Under growing international scrutiny, China ended direct nuclear assistance to Iran more than a decade ago, but it\u2019s allegedly allowed Chinese companies to keep supplying Tehran with restricted materials.<\/p>\n

Li, for instance, is accused of supplying Iran with guidance devices that could be used for missiles and high-grade alloys that could be used to enrich uranium. U.S. officials say Li made millions from such sales, a claim that\u2019s difficult to verify.<\/p>\n

McClatchy was unsuccessful in contacting Li or officials from his main company, LIMMIT, based in the northeastern city of Dalian. But in an interview last year with Reuters, Li denied selling materials to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure, we did business with Iran, but we did not export the goods they said we did, missiles or whatever,\u201d Li said. \u201cWe still get inquiries from Iranian clients, but we don’t respond to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a commentary Tuesday in China Daily, a leading Chinese academic urged the United States to \u201cstop playing the role of cop\u201d in the Li case. \u201cSanctions, China insists, can only be legitimate if they are authorized by the U.N.,\u201d wrote Wang Honggang, a deputy at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. \u201cOne country should not impose sanctions on another just because its domestic law has been violated.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. officials, however, say they\u2019ll continue to prosecute individuals and companies that seek to assist Iran with banned materials. \u201cWe will continue vigorously to enforce our sanctions, even as we explore the possibility of a comprehensive deal addressing Iran’s nuclear program,\u201d Treasury Undersecretary David Cohen said in a statement last week.<\/p>\n

U.S. prosecutors stand little chance of bringing Li to justice, according to one legal expert McClatchy contacted. The United States doesn\u2019t have an extradition treaty with China, and while facing charges Li is unlikely to travel to a country where he\u2019d risk arrest and extradition.<\/p>\n

While China could take steps on its own to arrest Li, \u201cI expect that China does not want to set a precedent of handing one of its nationals over to U.S. authorities for prosecution,\u201d said Margaret Lewis, an extradition expert and professor at the Seton Hall University School of Law.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 charlotteobserver.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6 May 2014 – China and Iran announced this week that they\u2019re deepening their military ties, with Tehran going so far as to claim that China now sees Iran as a \u201cstrategic partner.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-focus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}