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By Theo Nencini
In the wake of the large-scale Israeli-American military strikes launched on February 28, 2026 – an operation that has thrust the region into open war and claimed the life of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – the institutional and strategic foundations of the Islamic Republic of Iran now face unprecedent uncertainty. With simultaneous attacks targeting key figures of the regime, including IRGC Ground Forces Commander Mohammad Pakpour, Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, and former Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani, among others, Iran finds itself under massive assault while retaliating across the region. Under heavy bombardment, Tehran has struck back with missile and drone barrages targeting U.S. military installations across nearly all neighboring states, Israeli territory, and energy infrastructures in parts of the Gulf – even Oman, until days ago a key mediator with Washington, has been hit for hosting U.S. assets.
As the conflict engulfs the region, Iran’s external alignments have regained central importance – especially its strategic partnership with China. Beyond the immediacy of the war, questions about the endurance, scope, and practical value of the Sino‑Iranian relationship have taken on renewed urgency. Many analysts, both within and outside Iran, regard China as the only plausible external actor capable of supporting Tehran amid mounting international isolation and economic (now military) siege. Yet, despite both capitals describing their ties as a “stable and deepening relationship,” symbolized by the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement of March 2021, the tangible results of that framework remain limited and hard to clearly operationalize. Beijing’s stance – largely declaratory, economically cautious, and politically hedged – suggests that even in this moment of existential peril for Iran, meaningful Chinese backing is likely to fall short of Tehran’s expectations.
However, even prior to these dramatic developments, debate over the substance and limits of China’s relationship with Iran was well underway. It was in this context that ChinaMed Research Fellow Theo Nencini interviewed Esfandyar Batmanghelidj.
The interview was conducted on February 13 and therefore does not account for the current conflict. Nonetheless, it touches upon many dynamics surrounding Iran-China relations from energy trade, sanctions, practical constraints, and internal Iranian debates on engagement with China, offering keys to understand the deeper dynamics shaping the Iranian crisis beyond the war’s immediate tempo.
Esfandyar Batmanghelidj is the founder and CEO of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, a think tank focused on economic diplomacy, economic development, and economic justice in West Asia. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Johns Hopkins SAIS in Bologna, has conducted innovative research on the effects of sanctions on targeted economies, and has published peer reviewed research on Iranian political economy, social history, and public health, as well as commentary on Iranian politics and economics. You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @yarbatman.
This interview was conducted on February 13 and has been edited for clarity and length.
Theo Nencini: How do you assess the structural and systemic underpinnings of the Sino-Iranian relationship? More specifically, what do you see as the substantive political, economic, and strategic foundations of this partnership?
Esfandyar Batmanghelidj: The reality is that the underpinnings of the relationship are not very deep, which explains why we haven’t seen the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement materialize into more direct political, security or economic support from China toward Iran. If we take a long-term view, the China–Iran relationship has not developed over the past decade, despite how significantly Iran’s strategic position in the region has changed. That lack of a “shift” in China’s own approach to Iran demonstrates the limited willingness of Chinese policymakers to genuinely deepen the partnership.
At present, the most visible aspect of the China–Iran relationship is energy: Iran exports significant volumes of oil to China, supplying roughly 15–20% of China’s crude oil intakes. For Iran, the relationship is far more important as China is its only major oil customer. It’s a somewhat imbalanced relationship, with Iran far more dependent on China than the reverse, especially given Beijing’s very limited support beyond this narrow oil trade.
One of the through lines in my research has been to assess the China–Iran relationship comparatively, especially relative to other countries in the region that also hold comprehensive strategic partnerships with China, like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. What’s really striking is that, over the past decade, those three countries’ cooperation with China have deepened profoundly across security, economic, and political domains.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have expanded cooperation through participation in multilateral bodies led by China like BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and through increasingly frequent and complex joint military exercises. No comparable expansion has occurred in China’s military cooperation with Iran. Then, economically, it’s obvious that the UAE and Saudi Arabia – which have fast-growing, globally significant economies, maintain a deeper ties with China. I think the most interesting comparison is Iraq, which instantly shows how the trade relationship between China and Iran is quite dysfunctional.
There was a very good Wall Street Journal report on how Iran is exporting oil to China, but the resulting revenues are not readily available to the Central Bank of Iran and, by extension, Iranian importers. Iran’s imports from China are significantly below what they should be, given the size of the Iranian economy. Moreover, what imports do take place are often intermediated by the UAE: Chinese goods are shipped to the UAE first and then basically re-exported to Iran. This may be sufficient to keep the Iranian economy ticking along. However, the fact that Iraq – a much smaller economy with a much less advanced manufacturing sector – is able to enjoy a deeper level of trade with China than Iran shows that China has not succeeded in realizing a true strategic partnership with Iran.
There are many reasons why this is the case, but I think the most significant is that – as widely analyzed – ultimately Chinese companies are very reluctant to engage in Iran as a highly sanctioned jurisdiction. Trading with Iran exposes those companies to significant risk. And that risk is expanding. Under the Trump administration, there have already been instances where large Chinese enterprises, namely refineries, were designated for violations of U.S. secondary sanctions for purchases of Iranian oil.
If there is a Chinese strategic relationship with Iran, it is reflected in the fact that these designations have happened and that China continues to buy the oil. Chinese authorities appear to understand that – primarily for the purpose of maintaining regional security in the Gulf – it is important to continue to these purchases. Doing so contributes to China’s energy security by diversifying the suppliers able to supply domestic refineries. Maintaining this trade in the face of this now more significant sanctions risk is notable, but it is not the same as a proactive effort to support the Iranian economy. At the end of the day, when we look at countries like Iraq, they are enjoying a much deeper and more fruitful economic relationship with China.
TN: So, as I understand it, in your view the main axis – and the main fundamentals – of the relationship are its asymmetry and its essentially dysfunctional character. I recently listened to you on a podcast in which you noted that “the Iranian Central Bank doesn’t have the possibility to access this revenue.” Put simply: where are these revenues?
EB: The revenues that are accruing for Iran’s oil sales are, in reality, a bit all over the place.
I think it’s reasonable to expect, and of course it’s somewhat opaque, that when larger Chinese refineries purchase Iranian oil, some portion of the payments are made to bank accounts in China where Iran maintains some kind of correspondent banking relationship, or where the Central Bank of Iran or Iranian private banks hold accounts. This reflects an older pattern where designated Chinese banks – the most famous being Bank of Kunlun, a subsidiary of the large state oil company CNPC – were tapped with the responsibility of receiving or managing the payments related to oil trade with Iran.
In the case of Bank of Kunlun, this role essentially led to it being sanctioned. However, once sanctioned, it became a “bad bank” that could be used for this special purpose. From the Chinese perspective, at least there was a channel for the payments to be processed. From the Iranian side, the difficulty was that collecting funds in a designated bank made it very easy for anyone to know that these funds are, in the eyes of the U.S., illicit, therefore making it unlikely that the money could be moved out of those accounts very easily.
Since the maximum pressure sanctions began in 2018, Iran has introduced some innovations in how it markets oil, delivers it to customers, and receives payment. There have been two main innovations where China has not been the “architect” or the “inventor”; rather, Chinese demand for this oil was so great that a market solution emerged.
The first and foremost solution is logistical. How do you physically move the oil to China when there’s a lot of scrutiny of Iran’s oil trade and when key transport companies, such as the National Iranian Tanker Company, are designated entities? Iran has ended up relying on a burgeoning number of vessels and shipping companies willing to engage in the sanctioned oil trade. These are the “shadow tankers” we often hear about, whose development began in earnest after sanctions tightened in 2018.
The real trigger for its expansion was the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the energy sanctions targeting Russian oil. Iran has benefited because it drew in a larger number of vessel owners who saw market opportunity and were willing to accept the risks of moving sanctioned oil – some Iranian but most of it Russian.
So, from a logistics standpoint, Iran now has a network of companies willing to engage in deceptive tactics such as changing vessel flags, turning off AIS transponders, operating through shell companies, conducting ship-to-ship transfers and falsifying documents. This has worked in Iran’s favor, giving the refineries receiving Iranian oil the plausible deniability that it is not sanctioned oil. It’s very different if a shadow fleet tanker delivers oil to a terminal in the eastern side of China than if a National Iranian Tanker Company’s tanker shows up with its name clearly there on the side.
Aside from logistics, I think the more significant innovations are financial. Historically, the marketing of Iranian oil was the responsibility of state enterprises like the National Iranian Oil Company and its subsidiaries, which are controlled or overseen by the Ministry of Oil. Over the last seven years or so, as sanctions have tightened, there has been a transition toward a situation where more Iranian oil is coming onto the market and being traded by non-state companies. The Iranian state has effectively subcontracted this activity to intermediary networks that are able to engage in practices designed to hide the nature of the oil they are selling. You have a lot of middlemen that are operating through shell companies in jurisdictions such as the UAE or Malaysia, taking on the risk of purchasing Iranian oil and then reselling it to the final customer.
This brings us back to your question: “where is this money?” When relying on this network of middlemen, payments from the end buyer are typically received by the middlemen themselves. In theory, they are then responsible for repatriating those funds to Iran as payment for the commodity purchased from the Iranian National Oil Company and its subsidiaries. In practice, these companies – and the middlemen who own them – are politically connected to elements within the Iranian state. Famously, the son of Ali Shamkhani is one of the individuals that’s been identified as a key player in this trade.
This places intermediaries in a really extraordinary position: they’re collecting a lot of money that ostensibly belongs to the Iranian state for the sale of Iranian natural resources, yet they get to decide whether or not they bring that money back and make it available to the Iranian central bank and the core of the Iranian economy. The pattern that we have seen is that these companies not only take a significant cut of the trade – because the more middlemen you have, the more they eat into your margin – but at the same time face perverse incentives not to repatriate funds. Given persistent weakness in Iran’s currency market, expectations of future depreciation encourage intermediaries to hold revenues offshore rather than convert and return them. As a result, substantial financial resources that should, in principle, underpin the Iranian state budgets remain dispersed. If you look at the state budget, you’ll see that there’s an estimate for oil revenues based on expected export volumes and average prices.
Functionally, however, these funds are rarely consolidated in one – or even a few – locations at any given time. Instead, they are distributed across a fragmented web of financial arrangements. This fragmentation has become a systemic weakness: while oil is exported in high volumes through relatively consolidated channels, the corresponding financial returns re-enter – if at all – in low volumes and through diffuse pathways.
To the extent that China could help alleviate this problem, it has not taken any steps to try and make life easier for Iranians since the reimposition of maximum pressure sanctions in 2018. They take no responsibility, in part because these workaround mechanisms that kept the oil flowing were not designed by them; the markets came up with those solutions, and China is just benefiting.
TN: Which solutions do you have in mind? Something similar to the Instex instrument proposed by the E3 (France, UK and Germany) in 2019? Or something different?
EB: I think it would have to be simpler than that. The reality is that China already derives the main benefit it seeks from its relationship with Iran: energy supply.
Could Iran potentially be a big market for Chinese exports? Absolutely. But Chinese exporters already operate in virtually every single country in the world. The Iranian economy – roughly 4% of global GDP – is certainly not worth the inherent risk. From Beijing’s perspective, they’re already capturing the full benefit that matters most: oil. That leaves little incentive to devise special mechanisms. It is not a huge loss if they are not present in Iran beyond that, and it’s certainly not worth the risks involved.
There has always been an argument that China’s motivation to stand by Iran would not be economic but geopolitical: that China needed to demonstrate its ability to support countries like Iran in the face of U.S. “hegemonic power,” in order to build credibility as a “new hegemon” that could challenge U.S. dollar supremacy, U.S. security overreach, U.S. dominance of multilateral institutions and the broader international order.
So far, however, China has been very careful in how it defines or assert its own hegemonic ambitions, and it has not considered Iran to be an important arena in which to do so. In the Chinese context, it is important to demonstrate a willingness to compete economically with the U.S. while remaining careful about escalatory actions on the security file.
This is where it becomes very difficult for China to stand by Iran, because the Iran file is ultimately securitized. Every aspect of engagement with Iran ultimately comes back down to a U.S. perception of a national security threat. Even setting aside the deeper Chinese defense cooperation, which has languished over the last decade, with China refraining from providing advanced weapon systems to Iran despite Iran’s obvious need – political engagement has also been more limited than what we might imagine.
The delays of getting Iran into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, due to concerns that a sanctioned and highly securitized country from a U.S. standpoint would undermine the organization’s functionality, is another demonstration that even political engagement has been seen as complicated. There have been foreign minister–level visits to Tehran, but no reciprocal visit by a Chinese premier.
TN: Since Xi Jinping in 2016.
EB: Exactly.
TN: President Raisi also went to China, in February 2023, just before the Beijing deal with Saudi Arabia…
EB: Exactly. In theory, you would expect such visits to be reciprocated. Xi was likely invited to return and has simply not acted on that invitation.
So even politically, engagement is difficult. Economically – where engagement might seem the easiest and most straightforward – any Chinese attempt to engage Iran in defiance of U.S. secondary sanctions effectively challenges a core element of U.S. national security strategy. Chinese policymakers are very reticent to do that. They don’t want to directly position themselves as undermining U.S. national security interests, especially in the Middle East, where in any case it is important for China the risk of conflict.
For example, if a U.S.-Iran conflict were to emerge, would China intervene to help Iran and bog the U.S. down? Based on Chinese policy over the last decade of, my assumption is that Chinese policymakers would not intervene. China might withhold or undermine existing support – for example, by reducing oil purchases –to accelerate the end of the conflict.
China’s interest in the Gulf is that there is no war, given that around half of its imported energy comes from countries exporting through the Persian Gulf. Any protracted U.S.-Iran war would be very harmful – oil prices would be impacted, but even the ability to regularly bring out tankers from the Gulf, particularly if Iran were to target commercial vessels as part of an asymmetric response to sustained U.S. strikes.
For China, such a conflict might damage U.S. credibility, but it would also impose significant costs on Beijing as well due to its vulnerability to Gulf energy supplies. Given that vulnerability, and its reluctance to create direct tensions with the U.S, China would frankly likely prefer that if the US strikes, that they strike decisively and strike hard, limiting Iran’s capacity to respond and ensuring that the war ends quickly. This should be the base case for understanding how China might engage in such a scenario – especially given the absence of meaningful Chinese investment in Iran’s security or military capabilities.
TN: On this issue, I suppose you have read Middle East Eye’s report on the sale of air defense systems from China to Iran, as well as sodium perchlorate – which can serve as a missile propellant – and the BeiDou issue, with China allegedly installing the BeiDou navigation system in Iran instead of GPS. How do you analyze these military developments in light of your emphasis on the caution characterizing China’s Iran policy, and given your view that Beijing consistently benchmarks its relations with the U.S. against those with Iran?
EB: I think the analytical mistake we often make is to overestimate the degree to which actions like the sale of equipment or materials from China to Iran reflect state policy. Take the relatively straightforward case of chemicals used in Iran’s ballistic missile program. The simplest explanation is that companies producing those chemicals in China are looking for customers. It is possible that Chinese authorities, from an export-control standpoint, were aware of those sales and could theoretically have stopped them, but… why would they? The cost of allowing such sales is low.
My point is that the fact that these chemicals are reaching Iran does not reflect a Politburo-level commitment to support Iran’s defense sector. If that were the case, we would see far more support across multiple dimensions, including the kinds of military engagement China has conducted with other countries in the region, for example, joint PLA Air Force–UAE Air Force exercises, something Iran has never enjoyed with the Chinese military.
As for air defense systems, it is possible that some transfers have occurred, but we would expect more evidence. Reports of such sales emerge from time to time, but we don’t often see strong visual confirmation on the ground in Iran. Even where transfers may have taken place following the expiry of the UN arms embargo, these are defensive systems and do not amount to the kind of strategic support Iran would actually need.
Iran potentially faces an existential threat, depending on the appetite of American war planners for a major intervention. In that context, limited forms of support relative to that threat do not make a difference. The Chinese calculation is to provide Iran with a little bit of support here and there, support that ultimately doesn’t alter the balance of power in the region.
We also have to remember that this is partly about China managing its relationship with the U.S., but also with other countries in the Gulf. There is a degree of asymmetrical parity in how the Gulf states and Iran can threaten one another. The Gulf states benefit from the U.S.-backed security architecture: they have advanced weapons systems that they’ve learned to operate with US support; they actually have air forces with aircraft, whereas Iran barely has an air force. The one thing Iran does have is, of course, its ballistic missile capability, as demonstrated in June of last year against Israel. In that sense, the regional balance is relatively stable. From Beijing’s perspective, providing Iran with more capabilities that would augment its missile program and restore the conventional military power it currently lacks would risk destabilizing that equilibrium.
Another consideration is that such support would probably anger the Americans off but also undermine China’s relationship with the Gulf countries. This is the context in which the Saudi-Iran detente and the agreement signed in Beijing should be understood. China’s foremost interest is to find avenues for de-escalation in the region. It doesn’t see the Middle East as an arena to confront the US, but rather as a source of vulnerability. To manage that vulnerability, Beijing needs to ensure that regional actors are able to de-escalate when tensions may get out of hand.
TN: I would like to now analyze with they way in which the Chinese relationship is “used” and understood in Iran. In a ChinaMed Observer co-written by me with Veronica Turrini, we analyzed last summer’s Iranian internal debate about China’s posture during the Twelve Day War. Much of that debate resembled a form of collective mea culpa among Iranian intellectuals, catalyzed by the perception that successive Iranian governments, particularly since the administrations of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hassan Rouhani, have understood and practiced the relationship with China in an instrumental manner. How do you assess this line of argument? Do you share this view? How do you think Iran has “dealt with” its China policy?ChinaMed Observer co-written by me with Veronica Turrini, we analyzed last summer’s Iranian internal debate about China’s posture during the Twelve Day War. Much of that debate resembled a form of collective mea culpa among Iranian intellectuals, catalyzed by the perception that successive Iranian governments, particularly since the administrations of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hassan Rouhani, have understood and practiced the relationship with China in an instrumental manner. How do you assess this line of argument? Do you share this view? How do you think Iran has “dealt with” its China policy?
EB: It’s interesting because, like most policy failures in Iran, the debate that emerges tends to reflect divisions within Iranian politics: different actors blame one another for the failure of a key strategic policy area.
In the case of Iran’s policy towards China, two failures are often discussed. First, there’s significant criticism of the Rouhani administration and the reformist–pragmatist current within the Iranian establishment, arguing that they failed to invest in the relationship with China in the aftermath of the nuclear deal. After Xi Jinping’s 2016 visit to Tehran, the claim is that Iran erred by focusing on deepening ties with Europe, even as China was clearly ready to expand its position in the Iranian economy. According to this view, Iran missed an opportunity; the Chinese were jilted and angered that the Iranians turned away from them the minute sanctions were lifted.
This is, in my view, a fairly simplistic argument, advanced largely to undermine the pro-diplomacy line associated with Iranian political figures who prioritized engagement with the U.S. and Europe.
It’s simplistic because, ultimately, we need to consider the structure of the Iranian economy. As it was emerging from sanctions in 2016, Iran’s economy was built primarily on European investment and technology introduced during the first decade of the 2000s. Although there was an enormous opportunity to deepen engagement with China, it was completely natural and sensible to prioritize the economic relationships with European players, since these formed the underlying basis of Iran’s industrial economy at that time. Existing joint ventures and embedded technology were primarily European. There should, of course, have been an effort to draw more Chinese investment, but such investment would have flowed had the sanctions not been reimposed in 2018. It would have simply grown from a lower base, given Iran’s structural ties to Europe.
A second line of criticism, advanced by reformist or pragmatist figures against the hardline establishment, is that the so-called “Turn East” policy, the idea that Iran could move away from the West and pivot toward China and Russia, has proven a complete failure. In particular, the Raisi government, despite facing severe economic pressure, was unable to secure strong economic support from China even after going to Beijing. Some hardliners argue that Iran succeeded in restoring oil exports following the nadir of the maximum pressure campaign around 2019. In reality, however, this appears primarily to have been a function of market dynamics: global oil demand, the emergence of shadow fleet logistics, and financial channels that enabled continued flows. It was not the result of especially effective Iranian diplomatic outreach to China, nor of a strategic bet on Beijing’s part. As such, these developments should not be overinterpreted.
TN: Don’t you think that the Saudi–Iran deal brokered by the Chinese played a role in the surge of Iranian oil exports to China from the spring of 2023? From that moment on, Iranian oil exports to China nearly doubled, rising from around 700 kbd to 1.5 mbd…
EB: Yes, a little bit. China did make some commitments to continue purchasing Iranian oil, in part as a signal to Saudi Arabia. However, in practical terms, 2023 was also when China came out from the COVID lockdowns and oil demand began to recover. It was likewise a year the Russian invasion of Ukraine, by which time much of shadow fleet had emerged.
The issues of this debate in Iran is that both sides are ultimately wrong, because each assumes that Iranian government policy has been a meaningful lever in shaping the China–Iran relationship. In reality, much of what we see in that relationship is driven by bottom-up dynamics, as economic operators in both countries find ways to engage one another. If anything, everyone within the Iranian political establishment is basically guilty of the mistake of not understanding what it would actually take to operationalize a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement. There has been a persistent assumption that they need one additional high-level meeting in Beijing or further invitations to senior Chinese stakeholders in Tehran, assuming that these conversations are what really move the needle.
Analytically, there is a widespread tendency to see relatively authoritarian states and assume very centralized decision-making. Yet, when it comes to China’s external economic relationships (the security dimension is different), bottom-up forces remain the determinant of whether China invests a lot or a little. For Iran, what is important should not have been attempting to focus on trying to change decision-making dynamics in Beijing. If Iran wanted a healthier economic relationship with China, it needed to adjust domestic dynamics, make its market more attractive.
This is where you can understand the difference with Iraq, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. None of these countries are particularly effective at going to Beijing and dictating the terms of their bilateral relationship at. If anything, Iran arguably carries more geopolitical weight given its centrality to the national security calculations of Russia, the U.S., and China. What Iraq, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia did accomplish, unlike Iran, was to enhance the attractiveness of their domestic markets over the relevant period, through deliberate policy efforts.
In Iran’s case, this was always going to be difficult because of the sanctions. Nevertheless, there remained there were low-hanging fruit in terms of improving the Iranian market’s attractiveness. The failure of authorities in Tehran, across the political spectrum, to make these improvements is the fundamental reason why Iran lags behind its regional peers in its relationship with China. In a way, Iranians are debating over the wrong things because they are focused too much on ascribing blame for government policy that is externally facing when the reason for Iran’s inability to reap the benefits of its economic relationship with China is, as in many developing countries, is actually a reflection of internal policy that have yet to be adequately addressed.
TN: My last question concerns the reforms that “should” be undertaken in Iran. You have long advocated structural economic reforms, and I’m currently seeing many Iranian economic actors strongly asking for them, given the gravity of the situation. Do you think the current Iranian system is reformable?
EB: Given everything that has transpired since the major multilateral sanctions in 2012 altered the trajectory of Iran’s economy, we are no longer dealing with a simple question of reform. When we look at the economy of Iran, we’re talking about something closer to “reconstruction.”
What’s at stake is not just policy adjustment. Iran was once a large, industrialized, and productive economy. But due to insufficient investment, especially over the past decade, and a lack of access to technology, it now faces a deterioration of its capital stock: machinery, equipment, vehicles, and infrastructure have all degraded.
Relative to other countries, Iran is falling behind. Take power generation as an example, power demand has continued to rise because the economy has not collapsed, but Iran has not been able to build more power plants. As a result, plants are operating at full capacity. When disruptions occur, blackouts affect parts of the country, harming industrial production as well as households and urban services.
This illustrates why Iran is soon approaching a pivotal moment. If a diplomatic agreement with the U.S. leads to sanctions relief, the fundamental question is no longer economic reform. It will be whether Iran can attract the investment necessary to rebuild its economy. That requires substantial new capital formation and the import of advanced technology and equipment to modernize industry across different sectors.
For most countries, a key partner in infrastructure development today is China. There is therefore urgency in determining how to engage more effectively with China. I think at some point, if the conditions are right, the market will address part of the problem: Iranian companies will seek partners in China and will acquire technology where possible.
However, if the Iranian government – whether the current one or a new one – wants to put the country back on track, it needs to think about how its industrial policy aligns with China’s. This requires moving beyond the comprehensive strategic partnership, which remains largely an MOU with vague commitments. Iran needs a clear model of economic development, and China is central to that model. There is, in practical terms, no alternative partner capable of, for example, supporting Iran decarbonize its economy
These issues are more urgent than ever. The only Iran that gets out of the hole involves some degree of Chinese support. Over the past decade, China has neither been willing nor able to provide the level of assistance required. The task now is to understand why that has been the case and to try and change the conditions so that Iran can secure the help it needs.
Theo NENCINI is a Research Fellow at the ChinaMed Project. He is also a Lecturer in International Relations and a PhD Candidate at Sciences Po Grenoble and the Catholic University of Paris. His research focuses mainly on Iran-China relations, approached from a long-term systemic perspective and through a multilevel analysis, both with regard to Iran’s strategic thinking, political complexity and regional integration dynamics, and China’s foreign policy toward the Middle East.
