Provocations - Willem van Kemenade
China vs. the Western Campaign for Iran Sanctions
The EU, Israel, and United States have been conducting an intensive campaign of diplomatic skirmishes with Brazil, China, Turkey, and others over imposing sanctions on Iran to stop it from moving from enriching uranium to building nuclear weapons. The sanctions needed to be ‘‘crippling’’ according to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, ‘‘massive’’ according to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, and ‘‘biting’’ according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.1 Yet, an operational consensus had not been obtained by May 2010. Some in the United States, particularly within Congress, appear willing to be indiscriminate in hitting not only the core of the Iranian regime but also the Iranian people, while Israel is defiantly planning a potentially catastrophic military attack on Iran’s nuclear sites even without the consent of the United States.2 On the other hand, Europeans want to be more circumspect and focus on targeting the hard core of Iran’s regime rather than its public.
Meanwhile, Brazil, China, and Turkey have been unified against any form of sanctions and want the diplomatic process to continue. While Brazil’s and Turkey’s stance on Iran are each interesting, it is China’s position that is the most intriguing and consequential. If China, a major importer of Iranian oil and gas, were to go along with sanctions against the Iranian energy sector, it would indirectly sanction itself. But China’s motivations are more complex than simply its energy interests. Post-1949, China has been a longtime target of Western sanctions. Since 1989 to the present day, it has been under a transatlantic arms embargo, not as punishment for external aggression but for domestic repression. Although opposition to sanctions is a core principle of Chinese foreign policy, China does not want to be seen as the willing enabler of Iran becoming the tenth nuclear weapons power in the world. What is China’s role in opposing sanctions? And what role do stakeholders have in influencing China’s current policy?
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