China launches direct shipping line to Iran’s sole oceanic port on Gulf of Oman

Senior Iranian officials and military officers have vowed to exact “harsh revenge” for the US assassination three years ago of Revolutionary Guard Quds force commander Qassem Soleimani. “The Americans must know that revenge for martyr Soleimani’s blood is certain, and the murderers and perpetrators will have no easy sleep,” President Ebrahim Raisi declared on Tuesday to a mass gathering in Tehran.

His words coincided with a major development that could expand transit trade and provide Iran with considerable revenue in foreign currency. This was China’s launch of a direct shipping line to Chabahar port, Iran’s sole oceanic port on the Gulf of Oman.

Expanded and upgraded by India as a direct link between India and Afghanistan under the former secular Kabul government, the port is also seen as a main transit hub to Central Asia.

US-based Iran experts have pointed out that the Chabahar project was exempt from sanctions against Iran even during the maximum sanctions campaign adopted by the Trump administration. The reason, they suggested, was the involvement of India, which benefits from the trade and might have flouted the entire US-imposed sanctions regime if the port had been targeted.

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Several experts have argued that sanctions, imposed since 1979, have compelled Iran to become largely self-sufficient militarily and, at least partially, economically by being forced to build manufacturing, high technology facilities and infrastructure.

Despite sanctions Iran has played an active role in the region by backing the Syrian government in its civil war, Hizbullah’s armed wing against Israel and Yemen’s rebel Houthis fighting the Saudi-sponsored government. By continuing its hardline stance against Israel, Iran has made it difficult for Bahrain and the Emirates to deepen unpopular normalisation with Israel. Both voted for the recent UN General Assembly resolution to submit Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories to the International Court of Justice.

On the international stage Iran has been accused of supplying armed drones to Russia during the Ukraine war. Iranians have, however, suffered grievously from shortages of medical imports, low economic growth, currency depreciation and unemployment, which have prompted widespread protests in 2009, 2017, 2018, and 2022.

Having visited Iran before protests began in mid-September over the killing of Mahsa Amiri (22) while detained for a dress code violation, UN envoy Alena Douhan was critical of measures imposed on Iran’s key economic sectors and institutions. She said sanctions had “led to a severe drop of state revenues, inflation, growing poverty rates, and scarcity of resources to guarantee the basic needs of those most in need”.

The latest anti-regime protests have prompted ex-parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, incumbent Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and minister of cultural heritage Ezzatollah Zarghami to call publicly for reform, according to Britain-based Amwaj media. Influential conservatives are also pressing for cancellation of the “mandatory hijab”, stated Amwaj.