China and Iran: Ancient Partners in a Post-Imperial World

Preface and Acknowledgments

Preface and Acknowledgments A study of Sino-Iranian relations is timely because those countries play important roles in two of the most important regions of the world— the energy-rich Persian Gulf and the economic dynamo of East Asia. China is a rising global power and Iran is perhaps the strongest state in the Persian Gulf. The growing global demand for oil, and China’s role in generating that demand and Iran’s and the Persian Gulf’s role in supplying that demand, adds further importance to the relationship. Moreover, there is a long tradition of cooperation between these two important countries. Since the early 1970s Iran and China have cooperated in important areas, and each has deemed that cooperation valuable. This relationship may become even more important as the energy equation between the two intensifies. Added importance derives from the fact that the United States has had great difficulty engaging both China and Iran. Even more, many u.s. conflicts with China involve China’s ties with Iran: China’s cooperation with Iran’s missile , nuclear, chemical, and advanced conventional weapons programs. Dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue in the u.n. Security Council, the International Atomic Energy Agency, or elsewhere will require China’s cooperation . The United States’ involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, both bordering on Iran, requires an understanding of Iran’s foreign relations, including its relations with a major power and permanent Security Council member like China. In short, the China-Iran relation is an important one for the United States to understand. The fact that there has been very little scholarship on the Sino-Iranian relaix tion also makes this study timely. In the past forty or so years, only two books on the Sino-Iranian relationship have been published, one in English and one in Chinese. The English book, authored by Indian diplomat A. H. H. Abidi and published in 1982, was an excellent work but was written just after Iran’s 1979 revolution and just after Deng Xiaoping’s consolidation of power in China. There has been much water under the bridge since then. The Chinese study, written by Zhu Jiejin and published in 1988, deals with the ancient and medieval periods, with only the book’s politically correct introduction and conclusion, from the “twenty-centuries of cooperation” reviewed in the body of the book, pointing to implications for contemporary Sino-Iranian relations .Thevolumeyouareholdingis,Ibelieve,onlythesecondin-depth,booklength , English-language study of the Sino-Iranian relationship and the first that extensively considers the post-1979 period of the Islamic Republic of Iran and post-Mao China. Another justification for this book is that it touches on the relation between Western countries (which I take the United States to be) and nonWestern ones (i.e., both Iran and China). The contemporary clash between radical Islam and Western secularism is one of the main elements of early twenty-first-century world politics, with the Islamic Republic of Iran being one of the leading exponents of Islamic fundamentalism (though not Osama BinLaden’sWahhabi-inspiredterrorism).Understandingtherelationbetween the People’s Republic of China and the Islamic Republic of Iran illuminates one aspect of China’s relation to this important global political dynamic. An additional reason for this book is more existential. Since I left the American Midwest where I was born and raised and began roving Eurasia, I have been intrigued by the great, magnificent non-Western civilizations arrayed about that region: China, India, and Persia. Understanding the interactions of those nations and civilizations with one another, with the West, with Europe and its outlying daughters, has been a life-long quest. A previous study, Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century, dealt with the China-India relationship. This book is a continuation of the quest to fathom the relations among these ancient, great, non-Western civilizations .Perhapsinanerainwhichmoderntechnologyisshrinkingtheglobe and bringing the West and these ancient non-Western nations together with phenomenal speed, such understanding will be useful. Even failing that, it is an intriguing problem. As a scholar I have tried to set aside my American perceptual-normative lenses and understand the relation between China and Iran as the leaders of those two countries have understood it. Thanks are due to a number of people who assisted the creation of this book. Robert Sutter of Georgetown University, Gilbert Rozman of Princeton x preface and acknowledgments University, Ahmad Faraqui of...