Is China Playing a Dual Game in Iran?

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. “The Iran Nuclear Issue: The View from Beijing,” International Crisis Group Asia Briefing, no. 100, February 17, 2010, http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/north-east-asia/china/B100-the-iran-nuclear-issue-the-view-from-beijing.aspx. 2. See Evan S. Medeiros, Reluctant Restraint: The Evolution of China's Nonproliferation Policies and Practices, 1980–2004 (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007); and John Garver, China and Iran: Ancient Partners in a Post-Imperial World (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2007), pp. 153–155. 3. See Kenneth Katzman, “The Iran Sanctions Act,” CRS Report for Congress, renowned RS20871, October 12, 2007, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS20871.pdf; and American Enterprise Institute, “Global Business in Iran Database,” http://www.irantracker.org/global-business-in-Iran. 4. Zhongguo waijiao [China's diplomacy] (Beijing: Shijie zhishi chubanshe [World Knowledge Publishing Company]). Annual volumes contain a listing of high-level interactions. 5. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, “Arms Tranfer Database,” http://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers. 6. John Pomfret, “Chinese firms bypass sanctions on Iran, U.S. says,” Washington Post, October 18, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/17/AR2010101703723.html. 7. See Erica Strecker Downs, China's Quest for Energy Security (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2000), http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1244/index.html. 8. See, for example, John Garver, Flynt Leverett, and Hillary Mann Leverett, “Moving (Slightly) Closer to Iran: China's Shifting Calculus for Managing Its ‘Persian Gulf Dilemma’,” Asia-Pacific Policy Papers Series, The Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies, John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, October 2009, http://www.sais-jhu.edu/bin/y/v/moving_slightly_closer.pdf. 9. See Jon B. Alterman and John Garver, The Vital Triangle: China, the United States, and the Middle East (Washington, D.C.: CSIS Press, 2008), pp. 12–16. 10. Zhou Yihuang, “U.S. Attack on Iraq: Killing Three Birds with One Stone,” Jiefangjun bao, September 16, 2002. 11. Tian Wenlin, “Meiguo de zhongdong zhanlue ji qi lishi mingyun” [U.S. Middle East Strategy and its Historic Destiny], Xiandai guoji guanxi [Contemporary International Relations], no. 8 (2006): pp. 1–7. 12. Thomas J. Christensen, “Chinese Realpolitik: Reading Beijing's World View,” Foreign Affairs 75, no. 5 (September/October 1996), http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/52434/thomas-j-christensen/chinese-realpolitik-reading-beijings-world-view. 13. Regarding China's assistance to Pakistan's nuclear programs, see John Garver, Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2001), pp. 324–331. 14. John Garver, “The Restoration of Sino-Indian Comity following India's Nuclear Tests,” The China Quarterly 168 (December 2001), pp. 865–889. 15. Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons (New York: Walker and Company, 2007). 16. “Fiendish Plot,” Far Eastern Economic Review 151, no. 5 (January 31, 1991): p. 6. 17. The Foreign Affairs Small Leadership Group likely includes President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao, National Security Adviser Dai Bingguo, and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. On a security-heavy issue such as the Iranian nuclear issue, Defense Minister General Liang Guanglie and Central Military Commission vice chairs General Guo Boxiong and General Xu Caihou would probably be included. 18. Dai Xu, C-xing baowei: neiyou waihuan xia de zhongguo tuwei [C-shaped Encirclement: China's Breakout of Encirclement under Internal and External Threats] (Shanghai: Wenhui Press, 2010). 19. David Shambaugh, Modernizing China's Military: Progress, Problems, and Prospects (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2002), pp. 22–31. Additional informationNotes on contributorsJohn W. GarverJohn W. Garver is a professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is the author of China and Iran: Ancient Partners in a Post-Imperial World (University of Washington Press, 2006) and, with Jon Alterman, Vital Triangle: China, the United States, and the Middle East (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2008)