Iran is emerging as an arena of rivalry between China and India.\u00a0 Beijing is using its substantial leverage with Tehran to persuade Iran to expand cooperation in economic, connectivity, political, and security areas.\u00a0 \u00a0New Delhi fears that elements of expanded Sino-Iranian cooperation may compromise India\u2019s national security and add another potentially potent element to the growth of Chinese power in the Indian Ocean region.\u00a0 Analysts have long been attuned to Chinese-Indian rivalry in places like Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, or the small island states of the Indian Ocean.\u00a0 Now Iran is emerging as a focus.\u00a0 Given Iran\u2019s power potential, the outcome of this Sino-Indian contest may be a significant determinant of China\u2019s emerging role in the Indian Ocean region.<\/p>\n
Dimensions of China\u2019s recent courtship of Iran include:\u00a0 war and peace, international connectivity, and enhanced security cooperation.\u00a0 Regarding the issue of war and peace, in 2013-2015 China undertook a high-profile and ultimately successful mediation effort in the Seven Party negotiations over Iran\u2019s nuclear program.\u00a0 (The \u201cP5 + 1\u201d + Iran = 7; the \u201cP5\u201d includes the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: the United States, UK, France, China, and Russia, plus one, Germany.) Those negotiations led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement in July 2015 that was successfully implemented by January 2016.\u00a0 In exchange for Iran\u2019s scaling back of its nuclear program, many international sanctions against it were lifted.\u00a0 China\u2019s mediatory effort represented a bold initiative (for China) that was one manifestation less risk-adverse \u201cpro-active diplomacy\u201d mandated by Xi Jinping after he took power late in 2012.\u00a0 China\u2019s mediation effort was also a significant investment of political capital in Iran\u2019s long-term emergence as a major regional power.\u00a0 China\u2019s mediation effort in the Seven Party talks stands with China\u2019s 1987-1988 role in assisting Tehran escape from war (in that case with Iraq) via a Security Council ceasefire agreement acceptable to Tehran.\u00a0\u00a0 During the Seven Party talks, China played an important role in convincing Iran to come to terms with international concerns about its nuclear program.\u00a0 Beijing also helped persuade Washington to reach a compromise with Tehran at that juncture.\u00a0 Wikileaks documents show that even prior to the start of the Seven Party talks, China was passing messages between Washington and Tehran, and giving both sides advice about how to move forward in their quest for better ties. \u00a0China\u2019s efforts thus helped Iran avoid a potentially devastating war with Israel and the United States, a war that might have eviscerated Iran\u2019s comprehensive national power. \u00a0The China-mediated nuclear deal secured for Iran the lifting of sanctions, while safe guarding Iran\u2019s \u201cright\u201d to non-military use of nuclear energy under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.\u00a0 Comments by Iranian leaders indicate gratitude to China for its \u201cpositive and constructive\u201d role. \u00a0During the Seven Party talks Beijing demonstrated, as it did in 1987-88, that China is Iran\u2019s sincere and capable friend on issues of war and peace.\u00a0\u00a0 Beijing is now using that capital to entice Iran into expanded cooperation.<\/p>\n
India sought and secured a degree of detachment from the United States during the debate over Iran\u2019s nuclear programs, but undertook nothing comparable to China\u2019s high-profile and vigorous mediation effort.\u00a0 Nor did India have the substantial economic leverage with both the United States and Iran that China possessed while advising Washington and Tehran about the nuclear issue. \u00a0India was also handicapped by its non-inclusion in the United Nations inner circle on the nuclear talks.\u00a0 In contrast to India, China demonstrated to Iran via its JCPOA mediation effort that it could get things done on matters of war and peace.<\/p>\n
Regarding international connectivity, with the lifting of international sanctions in January 2016, China is offering Iran very large Chinese investments in Iranian industrialization, especially in the area of infrastructure: railways, highways, telecommunications, energy, harbors, and ports.\u00a0 These proposals were laid out by China\u2019s ambassador to Iran shortly before the nuclear deal was completed, and represented, in effect, a Chinese inducement to come to terms over its nuclear program.\u00a0 Once that deal was implemented in January 2016, President Jiang Zemin carried more specific offers to Tehran, promising major Chinese financing and investment if Iran engages with China\u2019s One Belt, One Road programs.\u00a0 Xi\u2019s visit was the first by a foreign leader to Iran after the successful implementation of the JCPOA.\u00a0 It was also the first visit by China\u2019s top leader to Iran since 2002 — 14 years before.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s vision is of dedicated trains and (perhaps) dedicated rails carrying containers of Chinese goods to Iranian ports for further shipment to the Middle East and western Indian Ocean region.\u00a0 If and when Iranian ports join Kyaukpyu in Myanmar and Gwadar in Pakistan as littoral gateways for Chinese commerce entering the Indian Ocean, China will have gone a good distance toward mitigating its Malacca dilemma.\u00a0 Chinese goods will also have better access to large markets around the Indian Ocean region.<\/p>\n
There is apparently a debate underway in Iran over deeper Iranian dependence on China, as opposed to intensified efforts to secure greater European re-engagement with Iran\u2019s economy. India has made an effort to limit or counter deeper Iranian economic integration with China.\u00a0 Four months after Xi\u2019s visit to Tehran, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi conveyed to Tehran India\u2019s proposals for expanded cooperation, proposing revival of a harbor, rail, and road project linking Chabahar in Iranian Baluchistan with Delaram in west central Afghanistan and thence with Central Asia.\u00a0 The Chabahar project was paralleled by a tripartite Iran-Afghan-Indian transportation agreement designed to boost trade between India, Russia, and Central Asia via Iran. \u00a0A third component of Modi\u2019s effort was revival of the idea of a north-south corridor involving Russia, Iran, and India, and carrying Caspian Sea region oil and gas to Iranian ports for forward shipment to India and the world, while Indian goods would flow north to Central Asia.\u00a0 In effect, Modi\u2019s plan is an effort to moderate Iran\u2019s economic dependence on China.<\/p>\n
In the area of security, during Xi Jinping\u2019s January 2016 visit, Iran and China signed a 25- year Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.\u00a0 The political framework of the agreement included mutual support on \u201cissues pertaining to their core interests,\u201d including China\u2019s One China policy and Iran\u2019s \u201cincreasing role in regional and international affairs.\u201d\u00a0 In the \u201cregional domain,\u201d the two countries supported \u201cmulti-polarization of the international system,\u201d non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and jointly opposed \u201cimposition of unjust sanctions against other countries.\u201d\u00a0 All of these provisions were implicitly directed against the U.S.\u00a0 China also undertook to support Iran in the areas of \u201cspace\u201d and \u201cpeaceful use of nuclear energy.\u201d\u00a0 In terms of relations between Chinese and Iranian militaries, there was to be enhanced training, exchange of information, and \u201cequipment and technology.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The degree of Chinese alignment with Iran against the United States implicit in the terms of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership marked a sharp departure from Beijing\u2019s earlier careful reluctance to align with Iran against the United States.\u00a0\u00a0 This too seems to be a manifestation of Xi Jinping\u2019s less risk-adverse diplomacy.<\/p>\n
Visits to Iranian ports by PLA Navy (PLAN) warships is one concrete manifestation of the expanded Iran-China military partnership.\u00a0\u00a0 While small PLAN squadrons began calling at Indian Ocean ports in 1985 and greatly increased such activity after Beijing\u2019s December 2008 decision to join international anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden, Chinese warships conspicuously avoided Iranian ports.\u00a0 Then in September 2014, two PLAN destroyers made the first-ever visit by PRC warships to Iranian ports. \u00a0That was two years into Xi Jinping\u2019s leadership, at the same time movement toward what became the July 2015 agreement was accelerating.\u00a0 Taken together, the September 2014 PLAN port calls and the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership bode a significantly expanded PRC-IR military partnership.<\/p>\n
Nothing in the January 2016 Sino-Iranian joint declaration even insinuates opposition to India. \u00a0Indeed, Beijing\u2019s bid to India is that it should partner with China and other like-minded countries such as Iran, to deal with common concerns with the security of their sea lines of communications in the Indian Ocean. India should, in Beijing\u2019s view, take China rather than the United States as its partner in dealing with security matters in the Indian Ocean.\u00a0 That has not thus far been an attractive choice from India\u2019s perspective because it would open wider the door to growth of PLAN presence in the Indian Ocean region, ultimately posing the possibility of China becoming a resident power in the South Asia-Indian Ocean Region and the United States could be persuaded to \u201cgo home\u201d and leave Asian matters for Asians to deal with.\u00a0 India might then find itself living in a China-dominated SA-IOR.<\/p>\n
Commentators in the Indian media have been critical of New Delhi\u2019s slow response to China\u2019s push for expanded partnership with Iran.\u00a0 Modi\u2019s May 2016 visit to Tehran seems to have been recognition of a more vigorous Indian counter to Beijing\u2019s efforts.\u00a0\u00a0 The agreements struck during Modi\u2019s visit demonstrate Iranian gains to be had through cooperation with India.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In private talks with Iranian leaders, Modi certainly would make clear India\u2019s hopes that the evolution of Iran-China ties would not injure India\u2019s national security.\u00a0 \u00a0The Iran card is in play.\u00a0\u00a0 New Delhi is calling Beijing\u2019s bid.<\/p>\n
Several macro-structural changes underlie the new Chinese-Indian rivalry.\u00a0 The PLAN\u2019s 2009 entry into the Indian Ocean on a permanent and expanding basis has raised the stakes for both China and India.\u00a0 Iran\u2019s growing regional influence — in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen — incline Tehran to look for a great power supporter such as its known and trusted friend China.\u00a0\u00a0 The intensification of India\u2019s security partnership with the United States raises the danger for New Delhi that Tehran will drift into opposition to India\u2019s alignment with the U.S. \u00a0\u00a0Beijing will certainly play up this theme, intensifying the need for India to counter Beijing and demonstrate India\u2019s friendship toward Iran. But perhaps the most important influence has been the recession of U.S. power as a regulator of both Chinese and Indian ties with Iran.\u00a0 \u00a0During the 1990s through the 2000s, Washington used its great influence to dissuade both Beijing and New Delhi from moving too close to Tehran.\u00a0 The volte-face in U.S. policy embodied in the July 2015 agreement made it possible for both Beijing and New Delhi to undertake initiatives toward Tehran based on their own interests, rather than on U.S. policy interests.\u00a0Simply stated, the withdrawal of U.S. power has led to intensification of Sino-Indian rivalry toward Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iran is emerging as an arena of rivalry between China and India.\u00a0 Beijing is using its substantial leverage with Tehran to persuade Iran to expand cooperation in economic, connectivity, political,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4802,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[820],"tags":[429,210],"topic":[1056,1058],"journal-year":[1071],"coauthors":[113],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n