Chinese firms are susceptible to this pressure. Nonetheless, the Liberian-flagged tanker Pacific Bravois said to have loaded Iranian oil after the expiry of the waiver and is making its way to China. As of this writing, the tanker is off the coast of Sri Lanka. When it arrives in China and offloads its cargo, how will the U.S. respond?
Iran-Iraq-Syria
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was in Baghdad on May 26. He met with Iraq’s Foreign Minister Mohamed al-Hakim, who said that Iraq’s government does not believe that the “economic blockade” — namely the U.S. sanctions — was good for the region. “We stand with Iran in its position,” Hakim said.
Earlier in May, Iraq’s Oil Minister Thamer Gadhba said that his country would continue to buy Iran’s natural gas — essential for Iraq’s electricity grid. This was despite U.S. pressure to cut natural gas purchases from Iran and to substitute this through a $14 billion deal with U.S. energy firms (including General Electric). Indications show that Iraq will not bend to U.S. pressure at this time. Nor will Iraq block Iranian oil from going to Syria by truck—an energy source that is essential to Syria.
China’s Shield
U.S. troops continue to arrive in the Gulf region, threatening Iran. Zarif and al-Hakim jointly said that this is a dangerous development. Pressure on Iran increases daily.
China has made it clear that it could buy Iranian oil if it can pay in yuan or euros, but it does not want to make Iran part of its dispute with the United States. The appetite to bring Iran onto the bargaining table with the United States does not exist in Beijing. Nor is Beijing willing to provide Iran with a protective shield.
But there are pressures on China not to ignore its own interests in the region. China built a large port in Gwadar, Pakistan, which was intended to circumvent the long transit of goods (and oil) from the Gulf through the Straits of Malacca to the South China Sea. But there are tensions here, as Baloch Liberation Army attacks mount on Chinese targets. One hundred and fifty kilometers west of Gwadar is the Iranian port of Chabahar, developed with Indian assistance. The United States — at a request from the Afghan government—has turned the other way to continued Indian involvement in that port, which includes transportation lines to the Afghan border through Iran. Iran has signaled that it would be interested in giving China a role in this port if India begins to drift away.
China has increased its engagement in West Asia, but not to the point of getting sucked into a conflict that it sees as unfortunate. What this means is that Iran cannot rely fully on China. And yet, China is the only antidote to the U.S. suffocation of Iran.
Global oil production is high, as are oil inventories. Oil prices, consequently, are low and will likely be lowered by reduced global demand. Projected low oil prices should raise more alarms in Tehran, since Iranian external revenues will decline and so too will its importance to Chinese importers. The only reason for China to throw a shield around Iran is to protect the Belt and Road Initiative. Not for the oil.
Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than twenty books, including The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (The New Press, 2007), The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (Verso, 2013), The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution (University of California Press, 2016) and Red Star Over the Third World (LeftWord, 2017). He writes regularly for Frontline, the Hindu, Newsclick, AlterNet and BirGün.
