The joint US and Israeli attacks on Iran have prompted alarm and heated debate among China’s foreign policy elite, who are preparing for a US presidential visit.
Juana Summers, Host:
China is currently preparing for the US President’s planned visit to Beijing later this month. It is trying to make sense of a joint US-Israeli attack on Iran. They have prompted alarm and intense debate among China’s foreign policy elite. But as NPR’s Emily Feng reports, China is treading carefully.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Days after joint U.S. and Israeli strikes began hitting Iran, Beijing announced it had evacuated nearly 3,000 of its citizens.
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FENG: …as shown in this state media video, some boats are being transported across Iran’s land border to Azerbaijan. The evacuation operation reflects the close ties between China and Iran, particularly around oil. Before this conflict, China’s small, teapot refineries siphoned off 90% of Iran’s oil. Here’s Muyu Xu, senior analyst at commodities information firm Kpler.
MUYU XU: Chinese teapots primarily refine Iranian and Russian crude from their steep discounts.
Feng: Concessions because US sanctions prevent other countries from buying Iranian oil. Xu estimates that a lot of Iranian oil left the region before the US and Israeli strikes and is now heading to China, giving Chinese refineries a buffer time of up to five months. But he says the energy crunch of the whole Middle East turmoil is quite serious…
XU: Some Chinese refineries have already announced or are considering cuts to operating rates amid growing concerns about potential supply disruptions.
Feng: These concerns have prompted China to send a special envoy to the Middle East. Beijing’s foreign minister strongly condemned the Israeli and US attacks.
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MAO NING: (Speaking Mandarin).
FENG: And China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning, last Friday, quoted China as saying, “Iran supports protecting its sovereignty and security.” Now, historically, Beijing has taken a strictly non-interventionist approach to foreign policy and this time also stayed out of the Middle East conflict. But Wu Xinbo, a professor of international relations at Shanghai’s Fudan University, says Beijing is reevaluating the U.S.
WU XINBO: The United States is becoming a kind of rogue state.
Feng: Wu says that with the US attacks on Venezuela and Iran, China’s foreign policy establishment will increasingly think the Trump administration…
WU: Not just selfish, but just irresponsible, irrational and destructive.
FENG: This assessment, he says, has forced international relations experts in China to begin rethinking the limits of diplomacy with the US.
WU: I think China is also prepared for some worst-case scenarios between China and the US on the military side.
FENG: On the military side, he says, this guy reflects a hardening of stances among some influential Chinese thinkers, including Zheng Yongnian…
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Zheng Yongnian: (Speaking Mandarin).
FENG: …a political science professor and commentator in Shenzhen who occasionally advises China’s top leadership and wrote earlier this month that the U.S. and Israeli killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is an American, quote, “religious struggle” against which China’s general inaction may not be adequate.
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Chen Wenling: (Speaking Mandarin).
FENG: Or this scholar, Chen Wenling, the chief economist of a prominent Chinese state think tank who wrote this year that China must seize a “landmark fracture” of the US and its alliances to build pressure on those who seek to contain China. Jacob Mardell is a writer and analyst for the blog Sinification, tracking Chinese writing on American foreign policy. He says, overall…
Jacob Mardel: There’s a sense of needing to adapt to a new reality, which is a kind of law of the jungle, fear-based international order that China just has to step in and respond to.
FENG: And he says there’s a sense that China’s usual strategy of sitting on the fence may no longer protect them from the U.S. or geopolitical turmoil. Emily Feng, NPR News.
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