[subtext] "We will not sacrifice our own economic, energy, & strategic interests vis-à-vis Iran merely to placate Washington..."

The Leveretts at the RFI, here

In Beijing, President Obama is continuing his administration’s efforts to win China’s support for imposing “crippling” sanctions against Iran over its nuclear activities.  While U.S. officials cling to the hope that China will not, in the end, stand alone among the P-5+1 in opposing new sanctions, Chinese President Hu Jintao politely declined to indicate any support for additional pressure on Iran.  Following discussions with Obama, Hu said only that “we both stressed that to uphold the international nuclear nonproliferation regime and to appropriately resolve the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiations is very important to stability in the Middle East and in the Gulf region.”

While we’ve spent far more time studying the languages of the Middle East than of East Asia, we believe that’s Chinese for, “We still don’t think that sanctions will work to accomplish anything worthwhile and will not sacrifice our own economic, energy, and strategic interests vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic merely to placate Washington (which really needs to get its fiscal house in order, by the way, if it wants us to keep buying T-bills).”  And, in fact, China’s official news agency (Xinhua) entirely omitted Hu’s statement about the Iranian nuclear issue from its published “Highlights” of the Hu-Obama joint statement.

........the Obama Administration either willfully or ignorantly misreads China’s strategic calculus about its relations with the Islamic Republic.  While China remains disinclined to challenge American hegemony in the Gulf directly, governmental and corporate decision-makers in Beijing are becoming more assertive in advancing China’s energy and economic interests in Iran—even as American concern over the nuclear issue intensifies. 

To be sure, on the nuclear issue, Beijing has, since 2006, endorsed three UN Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic.  (These resolutions are available under “Key Documents” on this site.)  But, like Russia, China has worked in the Security Council to ensure that only narrowly focused measures (e.g., asset freezes and travel restrictions) targeting individuals and entities directly linked to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs were authorized. 

It is not wholly implausible that Beijing (as in Moscow's case) could eventually end up supporting another Security Council resolution expanding the existing sanctions regime against Iran—giving just enough to keep the nuclear issue in the Council, where, as a permanent member, China has significant influence.  But China is extremely unlikely to go along with proposals from the United States and its European partners to go beyond exclusively proliferation-focused sanctions and target key sectors of Iran’s economy.  In particular, Beijing has made clear that it will not endorse any measure that would seriously impede China’s access to Iranian hydrocarbon supplies or Chinese energy companies’ potential to pursue upstream positions in Iran.  As Chinese companies are increasingly involved in selling gasoline to Iran and helping the Islamic Republic expand its domestic refining capacity, Beijing is also not going to support measures seeking to cut off Iranian access to refined petroleum products.       

Notwithstanding the pomp and circumstance surrounding Obama’s 19^th foreign trip during his first 10 months as President, his administration’s Iran policy is, effectively, on life support.  Trying to charm other major powers into pressing the Islamic Republic is not going to accomplish anything—except to bolster growing Iranian perceptions that Obama’s Iran policy is not fundamentally different from that of George W. Bush.  The Obama Administration has yet to face the reality that, to solve the Iranian nuclear issue, the heavy lifting needs to be done in and with Tehran."