Negotiations about Iran\u2019s nuclear program moved to a crucial stage in May and June of 2012. Unless Tehran accedes to international demands that it open to international inspections that verify that Iran\u2019s nuclear programs are not designed to produce nuclear weapons, a pre-emptive military strike — perhaps by Israel alone, perhaps with U.S. participation — could well result. In the midst of this escalating tension, prominent voices in the United States are urging that China could play an important role in resolving the Iran nuclear issue and averting a potential clash between Iran and the US. and\/or Israel.<\/p>\n
I believe these hopes for China are misplaced. Although there are people in China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs who believe that such a Chinese effort resulting in an accommodation between the Iran and the U.S.-led international community would serve China\u2019s interests, other voices take a far more jaundiced view of how China should deal with the United States. These bitter and hawkish views are strong in China\u2019s military. It is unlikely that any Chinese leader would want to offend the hawks, because intense maneuvering for succession to paramount power on the Politburo Standing Committee is under way in the lead-up to this fall\u2019s 18th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) China is unlikely to use its influence to avert a U.S.-Iran clash. If it comes to war between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, Beijing will do little materially to assist Iran. But neither will Beijing help the U.S. prevent, or extricate itself from, another Middle Eastern quagmire.<\/p>\n
Some prominent voices in the U.S. hope China will use its substantial influence with Tehran to persuade it to come to a negotiated, compromise settlement with Washington. A recent monograph by three Fellows (all U.S. military officers) in the National Security Program of Harvard University\u2019s Kennedy School of Government, titled \u201cReaching a Negotiated Settlement on the Iranian Nuclear Program,\u201d advocates a three-pronged push for a negotiated settlement with Iran. The second prong is an approach to Tehran through China. \u201cAfter failing to act decisively to stop the bloodshed in Syria,\u201d said the report \u201cChina now has an opportunity to demonstrate global leadership to reach an acceptable agreement and prevent a military conflict from affecting energy supplies coming from the Middle East.\u201d1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n The authors of the Harvard monograph elaborate the multiple ways in which Chinese mediation would serve China\u2019s own interests. War would be averted that might otherwise disrupt China\u2019s oil imports, make those oil imports expensive and depress foreign markets for China\u2019s exports. Chinese mediation would demonstrate that its growing influence would be used responsibly to uphold peace. China would win Washington\u2019s gratitude for working in tandem with U.S. diplomacy rather than as a peer competitor. Beijing also would win the gratitude of Iran for helping it avert war, further demonstrating to Iran the utility of friendship with China. The Harvard paper also documents via Wikileaks memoranda that China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs served as an intermediary between Washington and Tehran in the first year of the Obama Administration, when the new team in Washington was pushing to reset U.S. ties with both Tehran and Beijing.<\/p>\n These arguments are all solid. Some of them are sourced to this author\u2019s own writings. But ultimately, Beijing is not likely to use its influence to help the United States avoid or extricate itself from war or chronic militarized confrontation with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Weighted against the interests enumerated above, is the global strategic reality that China benefits from having the United States bogged down in chronic conflict with Iran in the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n Another recent article by two analysts in well-connected think tanks and published in the journal Foreign Policy argues that U.S. movement toward a strike against Iran would \u201cpersuade Beijing and Tehran alike that this option [of U.S. attack] is the alternative to full compliance with international sanctions.\u201d It says further, \u201cEstablishing a credible military threat to Iran\u201d and a \u201ccredible U.S. threat to disarm the Iranian regime,\u201d would compel China\u2019s leaders to drop their support for Iran. 2<\/a><\/sup> Since a U.S.-Iran war would imperil China\u2019s oil supplies from the Gulf, so the argument goes, confronting Beijing with that possibility would force Beijing to use its influence with Tehran to submit to U.S. terms. Again these estimates of China\u2019s calculations seem misplaced. They fly in the face of China\u2019s perception of a vast U.S. conspiracy against China and of what is required to foil U.S. hostile strategy toward China.<\/p>\nChinese Realpolitik<\/h4>\n