Iran vote shows China's Western drift
By Jian Junbo
SHANGHAI - This month, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed a
resolution to tighten sanctions on Iran, imposing a ban on arms sales and
expanding a freeze on assets of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in
response to the country's uranium-enrichment activities, which Tehran says are
for peaceful purposes but other countries contend are driven by military
ambitions.
This means China, as one of the five permanent members of the UNSC as well as a
traditional friend of Iran, has acted unusually in casting its vote in favor of
this fourth round of UN sanctions.
Li Baodong, the Chinese permanent representative to the United Nations,
explained that China's approval of this resolution "is aimed at bringing Iran
back to the negotiation table and activating
a new round of diplomatic efforts". His explanation was echoed by Foreign
Ministry spokesman Qin Gang in Beijing, who said the nuclear standoff should be
resolved through dialogue and diplomatic means.
However, following the resolution, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki
rejected it as illegitimate, maintaining Tehran's longstanding claim that the
country's nuclear program was entirely peaceful and therefore outside the
UNSC's turf.
Given China's stance, it seems previously good China-Iran relations have been
challenged, as Iran's top nuclear official Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic
Energy Organization and the country's vice president, lashed out at Beijing. He
said, "It's [China] showing a behavior that will certainly influence the
Islamic world and the minds of Muslims ... It will slowly lose its respectable
position in the Muslim world and will wake up when it's too late."
However, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad later politely said in Shanghai
during a visit to the World Expo 2010, "We have very good relations with China
and we have no reason to weaken our relations with China ... The problem is the
United States."
No doubt China had a difficult decision to make and it made it reluctantly. It
is now widely believed that Beijing wanted to please the US in the hope of
receiving some favor from Uncle Sam in return. This could be that pressure is
eased on China over its yuan currency, which the US believes is undervalued,
and that the US reconsiders its arms-sales policy to Taiwan.
For a long time, China has regarded itself as a leader of the Third World and
has often spoken out for the interests of developing countries - economic as
well as political. Because of this, China has often abstained in Security
Council votes against developing countries.
China voting for sanctions on Iran signals a change in this position on
international affairs; it could be a shift caused by the increasing economic
interdependence between China and the West.
However, China's relations with developing countries actually began to change
when it set out new foreign policies and speeded up the development of its
"socialist market economy" in the 1990s.
After the end of the Cold War some observers argued it would be replaced by a
clash between the West and the East, or by the capitalist camp against the
socialist camp, or even by a conflict between the North and the South. This has
not happened.
Because of fast globalization, all countries - including those in the South and
the North - have become increasingly interdependent in the world economy.
Traditional conflicts between the North and the South have not intensified but
have been gradually replaced by regional conflicts over cultural, religious,
ethnical, historical and geopolitical differences.
Global governance is required to reduce these conflicts and to address
universal issues such as the deterioration of the environment, which is causing
climate change, natural disasters, and water shortage crises, among others.
China's relationship with developing countries is being reshaped by changes in
its society and politics as well as shifts in the international order caused by
globalization.
As China's increased economic muscle boosts its global influence, the West is
likely to burden it with more international responsibilities. China has
developed complex relations with Western developed nations and its economic
success has become increasingly reliant on the approval and support of these
nations.
At the same time, the bloc of developing countries once grouped into the Third
World is not as unified as it was. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union,
many poorer countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America developed divergent
ideologies and economic and international strategies.
This political disintegration of the Third World, and China's increased
economic interdependence with developed countries, seems to have left Beijing
confused over what international positions it should take.
At the same time, the importance of ideology has diminished in international
affairs and economic interests now dominate most strategies. More than ever,
partnerships between states are dictated by national rather than joint
interests.
For example, China's Africa policy has always been based on mutual economic
benefits rather than political or ideological grounds. China is not a donor to
Africa but a businessman.
Powerful and potential competitors of China are also emerging, such as India,
Brazil and even Indonesia. Apart from Brazil, they are formal members of the
Non-Alignment Movement - an inter-governmental organization of states not
formally aligned with major powers - and they are more focused on jostling for
leadership of the developing world.
Just as Beijing is, developing countries are reassessing China's international
position, with the vote on Iran sanctions leading more to see it as growing
closer to the West. If China veers too close to the West it might damage its
national interests in the long run, since it needs to cast its net in
international relations as wide as possible to rise and become a genuine global
power.
Dr Jian Junbo is assistant professor of the Institute of International
Studies at Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
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