The Silk Road is Alive and Well

Recent events in Iran have brought its relationship with China into sharp focus. Yesterday’s crackdown on protesters commemorating the revolution in Iran elicited numerous comparisons to Tiananmen Square (though not nearly on the scale of the comparisons made in the aftermath of the June 12th protests). The government’s crackdown on internet activity smacked of the Great Firewall (with Google in particular being unplugged), a fact pointed out here and here. And further evidence of nuclear enrichment (both surreptitious and brazen) has once again fallen on deaf ears in energy hungry China (see here and here).

The lion’s share of attention has undoubtedly gone to Iran’s nuclear antics – and China’s tin ear. Indeed, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s barefaced announcement yesterday that “the first consignment of 20 percent enriched uranium was produced” has stirred up the debate on Iranian foreign policy, and induced a deluge of commentary on how diplomacy should move forward. A rift seems to be opening up between two opposing camps of thinkers: those that seek to move forward with a sanction package and those that seek a fundamental realignment of relations with Iran a la Nixon vis-a-vis China.

This fractured debate is perhaps best articulated by Flynt Leverett and Reza Aslan on Newshour last night:

While the best strategic approach remains elusive, one thing is certain: China’s support is critical, a fact underscored by the highly ineffectual sanctions packages that have hitherto sought, but failed, to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions without Beijing’s blessing.

As pressure to take actions continues to mount (no doubt spurred on by whispers of a pending Israeli strike on nuclear facilities, a la Syria in 2007), and the chorus of condemnation continues to build, diplomats will no doubt increasingly look to China for action. Importantly, Russia, a country previously reluctant to step into the fray on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, has thrown its weight behind the US-led sanctions package. Consequently, the real task before President Obama is now to convince policymakers in Beijing that regional stability in the middle east is more advantageous than the maintenance of the status quo, a point nicely explicated by David Sanger in yesterday’s NYT.

However, this task raises an important question seldom addressed in the abundant analysis of late: What exactly does China have to lose in coming out against Iran?

An Al Jazeera report from 2009 nicely elucidates China’s investment in Iran, and vice versa:

Suffice it to say that as of early 2010, total trade between China and Iran passed $36.5 billion, surpassing trade with the all EU nations.

Put more historically, the silk road is thriving. What was once a network of trading routes and passes that led from the far eastern stretches of China into Persia has given way to an elaborate system of pipelines (aptly dubbed Pipelineistan) that continues to bolster ties between the two distant economies and their ruling governments.

It is perhaps better described as the Energy Silk Road, as Willem Van Kemenade points out in his excellent monograph Iran’s Relations with China and the West (available online for free here), but it is alive and well nevertheless.

Whether or not China’s reluctance to come out against Iran reflects a growing sense of influence in the international community is an enticing question and will likely grow in appeal for analysts and commentators in coming months and years. But for the meantime it strikes me as a simple matter of dollars and cents, as energy and export hungry China strives to grow.

(Expect further discussion of this matter, especially vis-a-vis North Korea – this stuff is fascinating!)