A 25-year cooperation agreement signed by China and Iran on Saturday to strengthen their long-standing economic and political alliance could deepen Beijing’s influence in the Middle East and undercut American efforts to keep Tehran isolated, The New York Times reported.
China agreed to invest $400 billion in Iran over 25 years in exchange for a steady supply of oil to fuel its growing economy under the sweeping economic and security agreement.
But according to The New York Times, it was not immediately clear how much of the agreement can be implemented while the US dispute with Iran over its nuclear program remains unresolved.
President Joe Biden has offered to resume negotiations with Iran over the 2015 nuclear accord that his predecessor, President Donald Trump, abrogated three years after it was signed.
American officials say both countries can take synchronized steps to bring Iran into compliance with the terms of the agreement while Washington gradually lifts sanctions.
Iran has refused to do so, and China has backed it up, demanding that the US act first to revive the deal it broke by lifting unilateral sanctions that have suffocated the Iranian economy. China was one of five world powers that, along with the US, signed the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran.
"Relations between the two countries have now reached the level of strategic partnership and China seeks to comprehensively improve relations with Iran," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was quoted by Iran's state media as telling his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif.
"Our relations with Iran will not be affected by the current situation, but will be permanent and strategic," Wang said ahead of the televised signing ceremony on Saturday.
"Iran decides independently on its relations with other countries and is not like some countries that change their position with one phone call."
The accord brings Iran into China's Belt and Road Initiative, a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure scheme intended to stretch from East Asia to Europe.
Iran did not make the details of the agreement public before the signing, nor did the Chinese government give specifics. But experts said it was largely unchanged from an 18-page draft obtained last year by The New York Times.
That draft detailed $400 billion of Chinese investments to be made in dozens of fields, including banking, telecommunications, ports, railways, health care and information technology, over the next 25 years. In exchange, China would receive a regular — and, according to an Iranian official and an oil trader, heavily discounted — supply of Iranian oil.
The draft also called for deepening military cooperation, including joint training and exercises, joint research and weapons development and intelligence-sharing.
