CHINA AND IRAN: Iran is hoping that Beijing will prove a vital ally in upcoming UN Security Council discussions on economic sanctions over its nuclear programme, writes Rory Miller
Since becoming a member of the UN Security Council in 1971 China has almost never taken a pro-active role, and has never used its veto power on matters relating to the Middle East.
But Iran's failure to comply with the UN Security Council's August 31st deadline to suspend its uranium enrichment programme means direct diplomatic involvement by China on this issue may be unavoidable.
China's public stance on the matter up to now has been very clear. In October 2004, foreign minister Li Zhaoxing announced that his country would not support UN Security Council action against Iran's nuclear energy programme.
Much more recently, on August 22nd, Sun Bigan, China's special envoy to the Middle East, explained that the "Chinese government's position on the Iranian nuclear issue is very clear . . . Resorting to force and sanctions cannot fully solve the problems".
The Chinese reluctance to take a tough stand on the issue is motivated not by ideology or politics but economics.
Beijing and Tehran entered into diplomatic relations in 1971, and since the 1980s economic and commercial ties have flourished in areas ranging from bicycles and furniture to electrical devices. Chinese firms are also the primary contractors on the €528 million redevelopment of Tehran's subway system.
China has also been building up its role as a military supplier to Tehran, providing the country with anti-ship and surface-to-surface missiles since the 1980s and, along with Russia, assisting in the development of Iran's long-range ballistic missiles, the Shihab-3 and Shihab-4, which have a range of about 2,000kms.
Nevertheless, between 1993 and 2004 China's average share of the Iranian arms market was only 18 per cent, compared to Russia's 70 per cent stake, while Iran's share in China's total foreign trade was a negligible 0.6 per cent in 2004.
Thus, when Chinese vice foreign minister Lu Guozeng told Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in February 2006 that he envisaged great "co-operation" between the two countries in the future, he was not primarily thinking about the industrial or military sectors, but energy. The bottom line is that China has accounted for more than 40 per cent of the growth in global oil demand during the past four years and Iran is the world's second-largest holder of oil and gas reserves.
In 1997 Iran provided less than 8 per cent of China's imported oil, but this rose to 18 per cent by 2001. Since the 1990s, Chinese companies have been engaged in the development of oil fields in the Caspian Sea and the construction of a pipeline from Neka (on Iran's southern coast of the Caspian Sea) to refineries in Tehran and Tabriz. Iran has also chosen Chinese firms to assist it in developing its deep-sea technology for future drilling in the Caspian.
In March 2004, China's state-owned oil trading company, the Zhuhai Zhenrong Corporation, signed a 25-year deal to import 110 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Iran.
The following October, in China's biggest ever deal with Iran, the Chinese state-owned oil company, Sinopec, signed a €78 billion agreement to import a further 250 million tons of LNG from Iran's Yadavaran oilfield over 25 years. The deal also provided China with 150,000 barrels per day of crude oil over the same period.
The Chinese decision over the last two decades to link much of its future energy needs to its bilateral relationship with Iran means that Beijing has viewed with concern Mr Ahmadinejad's irresponsible behaviour since coming to power and sees his attempts to overturn the region's geo-strategic status quo as detrimental to its own extensive economic investment in the country, as well as to the stability of a key region.
The general disillusionment with the Ahmadinejad regime can be seen in the fact that China is actively looking for alternatives to Iran for energy supplies. Iran has gone from supplying 18 per cent of China's imported oil in 2001 to 11 per cent by the end of 2005, as Beijing is increasingly looking to Saudi Arabia as its main energy partner.
China has also increased efforts to diversify outside the Gulf, becoming Sudan's most important oil partner. No less notable was the fact that following his April 2006 visit to the US, Chinese president Hu Jintao travelled directly to Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer, to seek drilling rights.
As Sun Bigan recently explained, the imposition of sanctions on Iran could create tensions "detrimental not only to the region but also to ourselves".
How China addresses this challenge at the UN Security Council in the coming days and weeks will not only be crucial to how the international community resolves the challenge of an Iranian nuclear programme, but will represent another stage in China's own coming of age as a diplomatic superpower in the 21st century.
• Dr Rory Miller is a senior lecturer in Mediterranean Studies at King's College, London