Dr. Mohammad Mehdi Mazaheri \u2013 University Professor<\/p>\n
This country, which has now become an economic superpower in the world, is Iran’s primary economic partner and an effective member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS group, and as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, it has played a constructive, balanced, and responsible role toward Iran, at least during the recent war of aggression against our country. Since June 2025, when the United States and Israel carried out two illegal attacks against Iran, inflicting heavy damage on our country, China has supported Iran’s position in defending its national security and sovereignty. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its Permanent Representative to the United Nations have condemned the attacks on Iran as violations of international law, condemned the assassination of Iran’s leader, and called for an immediate halt to military operations and the resumption of dialogue. In its latest official position, Beijing has also explicitly and decisively rejected unilateral and extraterritorial US sanctions, declaring that its relations with Iran are defined entirely within the framework of international law and that China will fully support its legitimate interests in relation to Iran.<\/p>\n
Despite these supportive positions and China’s legal stand, and the importance of this Asian power for Iran, especially during this period of war and economic sanctions, it is necessary to take a realistic and precise look at the various dimensions of the relationship in order to enhance the effectiveness of ties by understanding the objective and tangible conditions between the two countries in this era of pressure and sanctions.<\/p>\n
Since April 2021, China has had a comprehensive strategic partnership with our country. According to the document published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the 25-year comprehensive cooperation program has been formulated and approved in three dimensions: political-strategic, economic, and cultural:<\/p>\n
Political and strategic: Strengthening bilateral cooperation in regional and international organizations and defense interactions.
\nEconomic: Iran’s participation in the “Belt and Road Initiative,” Chinese investment in oil, gas, petrochemicals, renewable energy, and the development of transportation and transit infrastructure.
\nCultural and social: Expanding academic, tourism, sports, and media exchanges.<\/p>\n
If we set aside the third dimension for now due to wartime conditions, regarding the other two dimensions, it must be said: in the political-strategic sphere, China, as a permanent member of the Security Council and Iran’s economic partner, provides political support for Tehran’s positions in international forums. China’s recent position affirming the legal legitimacy of its relations with Iran will create an important legal-diplomatic shield against the new US sanctions; however, Beijing still maintains conservative calculations in practical dimensions such as using its veto power or defense-military cooperation, and Chinese officials have denied reports of arms sales and heavy defense equipment to Iran.<\/p>\n
In the economic dimension as well, a recent report by the Research Center of the Iran Chamber of Commerce has indicated a gap between existing potential capacities and operational realities in Tehran-Beijing relations. Examination of official data on the volume of Chinese investment in Iran during the period 2005 to 2025 (four years of which fall after the signing of the comprehensive strategic cooperation document) shows that total direct Chinese investment in Iran during this 20-year period did not exceed $7.4 billion; whereas during the same two-decade period, Beijing injected hundreds of billions of dollars into the markets and economies of some regional countries such as Pakistan, Iraq, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. The main factors for the failure to maximize Chinese investment, according to the report by the Iran Chamber of Commerce Research Center, include obstacles such as “international sanctions,” “domestic banking and financial challenges,” and “the absence of stable institutions and investment guarantees.”<\/p>\n
During the war period as well, part of the priority of Beijing’s economic policies has been to support its domestic economy and protect the global energy market from severe shocks. In other words, China, which ranks second after the United States (19 million barrels per day) with a daily consumption of 16.37 million barrels per day, stands at the top of global crude oil consumers; at times following US and Israeli regime attacks on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, it managed the shock effect on the oil market by reducing direct imports and drawing from its strategic reserves. Although according to some analysts, these measures were fundamentally taken to protect China’s domestic economy, their side effect was to prevent a meteoric rise in oil prices, which helped Washington manage the economic consequences of the war.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, this Eastern superpower, by launching a new shipping route through the Arctic Ocean, known as the “Ice Silk Road,” is seeking to create alternative routes and avoid the vulnerabilities of southern waterways. Although this route has its own seasonal and environmental limitations, it demonstrates Beijing’s effort to diversify its trade routes.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Beijing’s recent emphasis on protecting its interests in Iran and its decisive rejection of US sanctions indicates that China well understands the geopolitical dimensions of Iran’s resilience against the United States. On the other hand, the Islamic Republic of Iran, by its steadfastness in self-defense and preventing an easy and swift American victory, has played a key role in undermining the credibility and hegemonic position of the United States and damaging its strategic military-economic reserves as China’s main rival superpower. Therefore, it is an undeniable geopolitical reality that as long as Iran in West Asia, as a strong weight, occupies a large portion of US military, arms, financial, and diplomatic focus, the United States lacks the ability to “fully concentrate on containing China in East Asia” and seriously pursuing the Taiwan issue.<\/p>\n
Accordingly, and relying on China’s recent firm position in rejecting sanctions, it is necessary for Iran’s diplomatic apparatus to actively enter into negotiations with Beijing. China’s new position indicates that Iran’s bargaining space has been elevated; therefore, Iran should enter negotiations not as a “player under pressure” but as an “influencer in the regional balance.” Iran’s winning cards in these negotiations are not only “cheap oil” and “transit position,” but also its “capability to maintain the balance of power in the Middle East” and becoming a “strong lever in the hegemonic competition between China and the United States.”<\/p>\n
Iran can convey to Beijing in negotiations that now that China has officially rejected the sanctions and emphasized the protection of its interests in Iran, it is expected that these political positions will translate into sustainable financial opportunities, infrastructure investments, and guaranteed energy purchases. Beijing should be made aware that the cost of maintaining a stable and strong Iran for China is far less than the cost Beijing would pay for directly confronting a United States unencumbered by Iran and the Middle East in the Pacific theater.<\/p>\n
Of course, alongside the use of this card, the long-term strategy for securing maximum and effective Chinese cooperation within the framework of the comprehensive strategic partnership is to strive for restoring stability and sustainable security to the country, reforming banking structures and facilitating investment laws, developing and balancing trade-economic relations with East and West, and creating conditions in which presence in Iran’s market and geography becomes a “low-risk strategic necessity” for Beijing, rather than a “costly option against the United States.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SCFR Online \u2013 Opinion: Concurrent with the official commencement of the United States’ economic war against our country, focusing on sanctions instruments, isolation, and economic pressure, what has now become increasingly important is the lack of alignment of other major global powers, especially China, with this policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13268,17,12726],"tags":[48548,48543,48546,48547,36614,48545,48544,48542,15786,48549],"class_list":["post-422101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-note","category-politics","category-10-en-2","tag-balance-of-power-in-the-middle-east","tag-chinas-rejection-of-us-sanctions","tag-chinese-investment-in-iran","tag-economic-warfare-and-sanctions","tag-energy-diplomacy","tag-iran-china-comprehensive-strategic-partnership-2","tag-irans-geopolitical-leverage","tag-mohammad-mehdi-mazaheri","tag-strategic-council-on-foreign-relations-en","tag-tehran-beijing-cooperation"],"yoast_head":"\n