SPEAKING FREELY Dance of the lion and the dragon
By Shirzad Azad
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Based on historical and cultural affinities, not to mention overlapping
interests, Iran and China form a natural partnership. China's modernization and
economic development have become a source of inspiration for Iranians.
Political and economic necessities are other factors pushing the governments in
both
counties toward close cooperation in various areas ranging from trade to
technology to energy and the environment.
Sino-Iranian ties are growing, and there may come a day in which the members of
Iran's ruling clerical clique put aside their ideological doctrine and choose
to follow the path that their communist counterparts in Beijing chose to follow
some time ago.
East Asia's modernization and economic success have long been an inspiration
and model to Iran. The shah, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, once said he wanted to
turn Iran into a second Japan, making his country one of the five or six major
world powers by the end of the 20th century.
The shah was ousted before he could see his wish come true, but the East Asian
developmental model implemented first by Japan, then by South Korea and now by
China has always been a hot topic among Iranian intellectuals, policymakers,
business circles and the public.
Historical and cultural factors make East Asia an appealing region for Iranians
to emulate. After all, the Persians have long been a key proponent and a
leading defender of Oriental culture and traditional values. Westernization and
modernization, with their fast pace in which the public has little time to
adjust, have been frequently quoted as among the elements that terminated the
Pahlavi regime's developmental doctrine.
For several reasons, none of the other East Asian countries is as close
culturally to Iran as China. The two nations have many things in common. Iran
and China are two of the world's oldest civilizations. They were both stops on
the ancient Silk Road trade route. The Persian Empire, stretching in its heyday
from the Indus River in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from the
Ural Mountains in the north to Egypt in the south, left undeniable impacts on
Chinese civilization.
Later the Persian Empire was invaded by Muslim Arabs. The Persian crown prince,
Pirooz, then fled to China's western borders, lived and later died there. Islam
also made its way to China via Persia. Many Chinese Muslims, mainly in Xinjiang
Uygur autonomous region, pray in Persian, not Arabic, and while their spoken
language is Turkic, their alphabet is still Persian.
Iran, the Middle Kingdom of West Asia, and China, the Middle Kingdom of East
Asia, have been historically symbolized by the lion and the dragon,
respectively. Meanwhile, the contemporary history of both countries has much to
say about the similarities in experience that the two nations share.
After decades of self-motivated steps toward development and modernization,
both China and Iran underwent a fundamental revolution followed by a
destructive cultural revolution during the last century. Both countries are
still dominated by the authoritarian system inherited from their revolutions.
The Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran coincided with the beginning of Chinese
leader Deng Xiaoping's open-door policy and market-economy reforms. Right in
the midst of China's striving for modernization and development, Iran moved in
the opposite direction. Not only did the Islamic Revolution act as a brake on
Iran's modernization machine, an eight-year war with Iraq coupled with
sanctions after sanctions ravaged the country economically, socially and
culturally.
The Islamic Revolution's striving to impose Islamic values and an Arab culture
on the land of Persia has largely been counterproductive. The Iranians with
their glorified past, which has nothing to do with an Islamic and revolutionary
system, have long voiced their anger and dissatisfaction in many different
ways.
For instance, the Islamic regime is blamed for Iran's huge brain drain. The
annual exit of roughly 200,000 young people, who are, in the main, the most
highly educated and the most capable elements of the society, is an
irreplaceable loss for the country.
Now, Iran is in a post-revolutionary state forced to wrestle with many
different problems. The country‘s catastrophic economic situation, culminating
in an official double-digit inflation and 25% unemployment rate, has forced the
cleric-dominated system to confront the implications of an anemic economy. The
Iranians are also increasingly pressing their government to put the national
interests at the top of its policies and care more about Iranian citizens than
the Muslims and the Arabs who live outside of Iran's borders.
The confluence of similarities and necessities plus other imperatives have
recently brought about increasingly close cooperation between Iran and China in
various areas. While the Sino-Persian relationship dates back over centuries,
their new emerging alliance seems to be unprecedented. The volume of Iran-China
trade exceeded US$9 billion in 2005, and Iran's imports from China rose by 360%
between 2000 and 2005.
Holding the second rank among top exporters to Iran, China has become a major
source of manufactured goods, leading to the bankruptcy of certain domestic
industries. Iranian markets have been flooded with cheap Chinese products,
resembling the time when those markets overflowed with Japanese goods, and
every Iranian house was equipped with at least one made-in-Japan appliance.
Growing Sino-Iranian ties and their close partnership for energy resources have
progressed to a new stage. Iran is now China's second-largest source of
imported oil after Saudi Arabia, and Tehran has clearly made it a part of the
country's foreign policy to have China replace Japan as the No 1 importer of
Iranian oil.
In October Japan's Inpex Holdings agreed in principle with the National Iranian
Oil Co to cut its concession in a $2 billion project to develop Azadegan
oilfield from 75% to only 10%, making Japan a junior partner. Iran is looking
for a new partner or partners to undertake the development of the southern
sector of the Azadegan field, and China seems to be the most favored candidate.
For its part, China's growing thirst for oil has made it imperative for the
dragon using its lion friend as leverage to get closer to the Middle East.
Because of its strategic, political and economic importance, the Middle East
occupies a unique place in international politics, and without having some
stake in this region China would put its long-term prospects as a rising global
power in a very vulnerable position.
Iran is the second-biggest oil producer globally, controlling about 9% of the
world's oil. China's booming economy has turned that country into one of the
biggest oil consumers in the globe, and this makes Tehran a natural partner for
Beijing and a necessary close ally.
Like their communist counterparts in China, the Iranian clerics are confronted
by the reality that their ideology is no longer working, that their
mouth-watering promises were false and that they have no option but to improve
the country's national power, which was damaged systematically by their wrong
policies.
Whether a Deng Xiaoping may emerge within the current clerical system in Iran
soon and whether the lame lion, weakened by years of revolution, war, sanctions
and isolation, will follow the way of its dragon counterpart remains to be
seen.
Shirzad Azad is an East-West Asian relations researcher at Aoyama Gakuin
University Graduate School of International Politics, Economics and
Communication, Tokyo.
(Copyright 2006 Shirzad Azad.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say.
Please click hereif you are interested in contributing.
