The Kingdom of Iran and the People's Republic of China established diplomatic relations in 1971. Of course, relations between these two great ancient civilizations vastly predates the twentieth century, with the silk road a testimony to the strength and duration of their bonding. Both China and Iran are inspired by a sense that their outstanding civilizational achievements over long stretches of history entitle them to an esteemed rank in the community of states, and a feeling that the current international order, dominated as it is by the Western power that stripped them of their earlier high status, is profoundly unjust.

This sense of grievance and victimization with the course of modern history has led to various discourses on the desired international order. In the 1970s and 1980s Beijing extolled unity of the developing, Third World countries seeking liberation from superpower interference, domination, and exploitation. During the immediate post-Cold War period, Beijing framed world trends in terms of trends toward multipolarity and against U.S. attempts to uphold unipolar domination. By the late 1990s Beijing downplayed the theme of incipient multipolarity, but condemned U.S. unilateralism, power politics, bullying, double standards, and interference. In all these periods Iran provided a valued card in China's strategic game. Relations between the two countries were underpinned by concrete interests: containing the Soviet Union in the 1970s, countering U.S. hegemonism in the 1990s, developing the economies and military forces in their own countries, supplying and consuming energy, etc.

Opposition to U.S. unipolar domination and aspiration to a more balanced international order therefore creates considerable common interest between the two powers. In the wording of communiques, "Iran and China share common views on many major international issues, although they pursue independent foreign policies". The last qualification should however be emphasized. China's cooperation with Iran has frequently come into conflict with the imperative of maintaining a broadly cooperative relation with the United States in the sake of China's economic development. When the chips are down, the requirements of China's "peaceful rise" trump all other considerations, and Iran's wild card is simply too dangerous to play.

Developments in the nuclear arena illustrate the trade-offs between China's cooperation with Iran and maintenance of Sino-American comity. Support for Iranian nuclear programs was a key element of Beijing's effort to forge a partnership with Iran in the 1980s and 1990s. While China was not Iran's only partner during that period (Pakistan's Abdul Qadir Khan provided key technologies for uranium enrichment), it was by far the most important. During these years, Beijing turned a blind eye as Iran's nuclear program large and covert military dimensions came into public view. In 1997 however, China abandoned its nuclear cooperation with Iran under intense U.S. pressure to do so.

Safeguarding China's vital relation with the United States was not the sole motivation. The desire to be recognized as a sober, responsible leading nation of the world gradually led China to support the nonproliferation regime. Although an Iranian bomb did not directly threaten China, Beijing recognized that as an NPT nuclear weapon state China's interests were best served by limiting the number of states that possess nuclear weapons. The desire to access U.S. and Europe's advanced nuclear power technology to ease the country's energy bottlenecks also provided a strong incentive. The terms the U.S. set for accessing that technology were China's compliance with global nonproliferation norms and, in the case of Iran, severance of all nuclear ties, including cooperation permitted under international law.

Developments in the Middle East also illustrate this basic trade-off. Although Chinese diplomats have consistently held that "the affairs of a given region must be managed by the countries and people's of that region", China has decided not to antagonize the United States in the Middle East. China depends on the Persian Gulf for the greater part of its oil imports, and therefore indirectly benefits from the security guarantee provided by the U.S. The only scenario that would balance this dependence on the U.S. securing the Gulf would be in the advent of a conflict over Taiwan. Should a conflict in the Taiwan straits become protracted, the United States would be likely to cut off China's oil imports one way or another. The willingness of a major petroleum power like Iran to continue supplying China could be highly important under these circumstances.

The Sino-Iranian relation can therefore be best described as a second-order relationship in the sense that both parties have periodically subordinated that relationship to other objectives. In the 1970s Iran insisted on subordinating its relation with China to Iran's relation with the Soviet Union, and used the rivalry between the two powers to its own advantage. Similarly, in the 2000s Beijing insists on subordinating its relation with Iran to China's far more important relation with the United States, and uses the Iranian card both as a leverage and as a hedge.

In the long run however, the author sees much potential for cooperation between the two powers. There has been no incident of armed conflict in the long history of interaction between Chinese and Persian states, but rather lots of mutually beneficial exchanges, including occasional convergence of strategic interests. Among all regional powers having to cope with China's "peaceful rise", Iran promises to be more comfortable with greater Chinese power than does any other major Asian state. China and Iran are ancient partners that may be drawn ever closer together in a post-imperial world.

Between 2005 and 2007, Iranian trade with China doubled to US$20 billion. On September 30, 2007, the Chinese ambassador to Tehran said, "China will never do anything against Iran's interests." (1) With the increase of relations between Beijing and Tehran, so, too, have U.S. policy concerns grown. Despite that, the literature on Sino-Iranian relations has been sparse until now.

To fill the gap, Garver, a China scholar at the Georgia Institute of Technology, puts together an impressive exploration of Sino-Iranian relations in China and Iran. Unfortunately, he breezes through twenty centuries of pre-modern Sino-Iranian relations in just eight pages, depriving the reader of context for the recent flourishing. Garver may be too cynical when he suggests that Chinese and Iranian emphasis on their earlier ties is convenient revisionism for there does exist a rich Persian literature--yet to be translated into any Western language--discussing earlier generations of ties with China. (2)

Garver's focus begins in 1971 when the Peoples' Republic of China established relations with Iran. He then traces the ebb and flow of contacts through China's liberalization and Iran's Islamic revolution. Throughout much of the 1990s, Tehran and Beijing found common ground in an "anti-[U.S.] hegemony partnership." Separate chapters examine the Iranian approach to China's Muslim Uighur population; Chinese assistance to Iran's nuclear program; and Sino-Iranian energy cooperation.

China and Iran is straightforward, well-indexed, and well-sourced, if a bit dry. Garver does not offer earthshaking analysis, but for any policy practitioner wishing to understand the context of the current Sino-Iranian embrace, China and Iran offers a handy, reliable resource.

Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2008

(1) Fars News Agency, Oct. 1, 2007.
(2) Ali Akbar Khata`i, Khataynameh [The Book of China], Iraj Afshar, ed. (Tehran: Center for Documents of Asian Culture, 1993).

That China and Iran are determined to resist American imperialism is a given. The How Question is adeptly described in this unique work, that shows how China has deftly walked the high wire dividing its interests in maintaining trade relations with the US and assisting Iran in developing its economic and military potential. The mutual antipathy of Iran and the US provides the backdrop for China's diplomacy, which has been characterized in its post-Mao phase by an under-the-radar handling of foreign relations. This approach is in sharp contrast to the US approach, which is to bomb first and then ask no questions later. It is little wonder that China is making friends as fast as we are making enemies. Naturally, Iran's ideological perspective makes it a prime candidate for being America's latest Devil Number One, and vice versa, a status that allows China to play both ends against the middle.
The author describes in not-too-cumbersome detail the economic, cultural, military and political relationship between these two self-proclaimed civilization progenitors (the depth of the conviction that both are ancient forerunners of everything good and noble today is a theme whose sincerity should not be questioned, though its practical significance remains an open question.)
I found the author's discussion of how China may be using Iran as a future bargaining chip over Taiwan interesting, though not wholly convincing that the Chinese are as capable as the US is in such cold-calculating cynical backstabbing. That China would come to Iran's assistance in case of yet another Bush-League War is doubtful, given China's pragmatic approach to international relations and its continued need for American development of its economic base. But, having said that, there is no doubt that China would do everything short of direct war with American to assist Iran, if for no other reason than to seriously weaken an already overstretched Uncle Sam. Such a scenario would make Taiwan look like the proverbial ripe fruit begging to be picked by the PRC.
This book is a valuable addition to any library stocked with Asian history titles or international political tomes.