China’s strengthening of ties with Iran, Myanmar, and Russia risks its relationships with important global powers. These partnerships undermine the credibility of China’s claim to prioritize global peace, stability, and sovereignty.
Let’s take each nation in turn.
Over the weekend, China agreed to a landmark strategic partnership agreement with Iran. The deal will see tens of billions of dollars in Chinese investments and military developments flow into Iran. In return, Iran will provide China with oil exports. But while China asserts that this deal will forge Iran’s peaceful development and mutually beneficial economic dealings, the reality is quite different.
Judged purely on financial terms, this agreement is heavily weighted in Iran’s favor. Beijing’s concern is not a return on investment but political influence. Beijing knows that it now has a new lever by which to undermine or support Washington’s interests in the Middle East. Want us to pressure Iran to get back into the JCPOA nuclear accord? Well, Xi Jinping will now be able to tell President Joe Biden that he should relinquish U.S. trade restrictions on Chinese technology firms.
Unfortunately for Beijing, this attempt to expand its transactional foreign policy will not be that simple. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will be deeply alarmed by China’s new Iran agreement. Viewing Iran as a theological and political nemesis, they will not easily tolerate China’s smoothing excuses that this agreement won’t jeopardize their security interests. Coming under pressure from the United States, which is concerned by its growing relations with China, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have just found a good reason to pare back their cooperation with Beijing. This is also the case with Israel, which, considering Iran’s threat to its very existence, might now realize the folly of its China flirtations.
The same will be true of the European Union, albeit to a lesser degree. While the EU seeks Iran’s return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal, it has no great desire for an Iranian ballistic missile capability that can target European cities. The EU will also rightly fear that China’s investments will line hard-liner’s pockets in Tehran as they seek further destabilization of Iraq and Lebanon. Put simply, China’s deal with Iran will undermine its credibility with other important partners while consolidating America’s existing warning on this same point.
Iran isn’t exactly helping China’s situation. The head of Iran’s national security council happily declared that its China partnership is part of Tehran’s “active resistance” foreign policy.
Then there’s Myanmar, whose military junta was openly gunning down peaceful protesters just this weekend. Its utter disdain for human rights was already clear in light of its genocide against the Rohingya ethnic minority. But China continues to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the junta, desperate to maintain its trade links with the regime. The people of Myanmar have noticed and are taking out their fury on Chinese business interests in the Southeast Asian nation.
China’s tolerance for the junta complicates its relationship with the EU. Under escalating EU pressure to do more on human rights, especially in relation to its genocide against the Uyghur people, China’s tolerance of the junta’s shoot-em-up human rights policy isn’t terribly helpful. As the European Parliament considers whether to adopt German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s most idiotic brainchild, the EU-China trade framework, China’s policy on Myanmar offers a stark reminder of how little regard Xi’s regime actually has for human rights. What China is doing in Myanmar might directly affect how the EU approaches the trade deal.
Finally, there’s Russia. Vladimir Putin has benefited from increasing Chinese trade and security cooperation. The Chinese and Russian foreign ministers are now openly identifying their partnership as a construct outside of the Western democratic order.
Alongside escalating joint Sino-Russian military exercises, the EU has another reason to be concerned. After all, China’s pitch to the EU is rooted in its claim to seek only “win-win” cooperation. Merkel has repeated this narrative in seeking to persuade the EU to forge closer ties with Beijing. Yet, when, as now, China assists Russia and openly supports Putin’s security activities, the EU must face a difficult reality. Beijing is openly empowering the primary threat to European sovereignty and security. This is not evidence of China’s support for a win-win international order but rather evidence of its disdain for critical European security concerns. It is a challenge to which even the most mercantilist of European leaders must take note.
China thinks it can have its international relations cake and eat it too. It might soon discover a different truth.
