US-Iran crisis: a Middle East war risks drawing in China and Russia, too
- Beijing and Moscow have stood by Iran in the face of Washington’s belligerence.
- Now they must decide: how true a friend is Tehran, really?
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China and Russia objected to the move and refused to participate in US sanctions against Tehran, leading Washington to see Beijing and Moscow as impediments to its effort to isolate the Iranian regime.
The escalating tensions have only really served to bring Tehran, Beijing and Moscow closer together, as Washington paints all three as its implacable adversaries. Indeed, they are cooperating to oppose American interests whenever and wherever possible, in the face of rising US antagonism.
Some observers have interpreted the four-day joint naval drill that the three held last month in the northern Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman as symbolising the emergence of an anti-American alliance. The stretch of water where it took place, which includes the Strait of Hormuz through which about a fifth of the world’s oil passes, has immense geopolitical importance after all.
Both oppose Western-sponsored regime change in the region, and thus see Iran as a partner in countering US hegemony and the driving forward of a new, multipolar world.
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Former US president Ronald Reagan once described the Soviet Union as an “evil empire”, while one of his successors, George W. Bush, lumped Iran, Iraq and North Korea together in his “axis of evil”. Now, Washington and Brussels call Beijing and Moscow “revisionist” powers, Tehran a “rogue regime” and the anti-US alliance they have begun to form an “axis of autocracy”. Such labels only really serve to unite the West’s opponents.
Moscow and Beijing might even be happy to see rising tensions between the US and Iran, as conflict in the Middle East would divert America’s attention away from challenging their interests in Eastern Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Both are also positioned to exploit such a conflict, if it did occur, to boost their clout and carve out spheres of influence in the region.
Yet without strong incentives for either to get directly involved in the squabble, they are more likely to limit themselves to anti-US rhetoric and giving moral support to Iran. After all, is Tehran really a true friend and diehard ally that Beijing and Moscow would be willing to go to war for? Or more an “ally of convenience” under the old realpolitik rationale that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”? ■
Cary Huang is a veteran China affairs columnist, having written on the topic since the early 1990s