China’s arms sales to Iran

State finally got around to addressing the China==>Iran==>Iraq arms link, saying:

The United States has warned Beijing over reported use of Chinese weapons by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the Asian giant’s continued sale of arms to Iran, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said.
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Negroponte told the US senators that Washington “made it clear” to Beijing that Chinese entities’ continued sale of conventional weapons to Iran “is unacceptable.”

He said Chinese officials told him “they have scaled way back their sale of conventional weapons to Iran.”

“They had relationships previously where they exported these weapons but they have dialed that back,” he said.

There’s a bit of problem with the “scaling back” statement, though. I don’t really see that that’s happening. Take for example this news from last December:

The Russian Kommersant Daily reported that an Iranian aviation company agent had confirmed that China would export to Iran 24 J-10A fighters between 2008 and 2010 at a price of $1 billion.

Allowing this information to surface at this time appears intended to embarrass, and warn, the United States. China is sending the message that it too can play the arms export game — reminding the United States to think twice about its arms sales to Taiwan, especially Block 52 F-16 fighters.
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On top of speculations about China’s planned export of J-10As to Iran are hints that China has been actively promoting its FBC2 (JH-7A) fighter-bomber to Iran as well, obviously under the same political and military rationale.

And of course, as of 2005, almost all of Iran’s arms purchases came from Russia and China.

China and Russia have been playing a dangerous game, and it looks like that game is starting to be exposed to the light at last. I hope this will help fence Iran off from further support (see preceding post) – that will do quite a bit toward stabilizing the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular.

Iran’s special friends

Iran gave Russia and China their packet of proposals on “long-term cooperation aimed at strengthening peace, and international and regional security on a just basis.” Presumably this is the same packet they gave the UN a few days ago. The interesting part to me was a little aside from the article:

Iran said on Friday it has submitted to the Russian and Chinese Foreign Ministries a package of proposals on nuclear non-proliferation and other international security issues.
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The diplomat said Iran enjoys special relations with Russia and China, and that these countries “could play a major role in the dialogue between Iran and other countries on this issue.”

They sure do enjoy special relations, but they are very uncomfortable with their role as stalking horse for Russia and China. They keep trying to move beyond that role to the next level of relations, where they can find more security and less exposure, but Russia and China keep stringing them along.

It will be interesting to see how the two patrons react to Iran’s proposals. I suspect they’ll just use them as an excuse to do nothing for awhile, putting more pressure on the US, who hears the nuclear clock ticking…ticking…ticking…