The US is keen for Asia to follow tougher EU sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme. Expect China to drive a hard bargain.
Last week, two senior US officials visited South Korea and Japan to rally support for applying additional sanctions against Iran for Tehran’s continuing defiance of UN Security Council resolutions over its nuclear programme.
In Seoul and Tokyo, Robert Einhorn, the US State Department's special adviser for non-proliferation and arms control, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes Daniel Glaser lobbied their hosts to strengthen their enforcement of existing multinational sanctions and to adopt additional measures that exceed the limited Security Council measures.
This likely won’t be the last time such a joint team is in Asia—although European allies appear to be on board with the additional measures, the United States is concerned that some Asian states might be tempted to free ride on the unilateral economic sanctions they’ve adopted in recent months.
The US Government Accountability Office has already identified Malaysia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates as the main third-party countries through which US military and dual-use goods (civilian goods with potential military applications) reach Iran. More importantly, however, Japan, South Korea and China in particular have substantial economic dealings with Iran—all are major producers of industrial machinery and machine-making tools that Iran needs to develop its energy industry.
The problem is that some of these goods also have military uses, including in the production of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. The US hopes that by decreasing such ties, further pressure will be placed on Tehran to make concessions on the nuclear issue. Yet, Chinese and other Asian business managers are eager to exploit Iran’s isolation from international markets for their own economic benefit.
Before leaving Washington, Einhorn told a hearing of the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he saw the sanctions recently enacted by the EU as setting ‘some very high standards for sanctions,’ and that he ‘wanted to see if Japan and South Korea could come up to that mark.’
But Asian governments have a quite different set of calculations than European nations. After all, unlike NATO countries, whose governments can identify a plausible military threat from an Iran that possessed nuclear warheads and long-range ballistic missiles, Asian countries consider an attack from Iran a remote contingency and are more concerned with the nuclear rogue in their back garden, namely North Korea.
This leaves Asian governments with an awkward calculation to make—how much can they afford to antagonize US policymakers and endanger their economic interests in the United States if Washington sanctions their firms for engaging in commerce with Iran. Connected to this is the fear that ties with Iran will endanger Asian firms’ reputations, prove unprofitable without access to Western technology and financing and entangle their foreign operations in the extensive network of secondary sanctions that the Bush and now Obama administrations have been building to entrap entities with ties to Iran’s illicit nuclear activities.
Photo Credit: White House
View as Single Page
Reddit
Digg
StumbleUpon
Delicious
Technorati
Yahoo
Google
Plurk
harry
“China can be expected to drive a very hard bargain.”
Give China a squadron of F-22 and its blue prints and two Virginia class nuclear submarine and it blue print and we will act on the UN resolution straight away.
The_Observer
Can’t see anything wrong with China, India and Russia wanting to trade with Iran. Those countries do not have a problem with the regime in Tehran nor with the Iranian people. The USA and the British have a problem with Iran because if the latter’s influence increases it affects the former’s compliant Arab client states in the Gulf and Iran also then becomes a counter-balance to the USA’s pit-bull state, Israel. That is why a USA/Israel bombing of Iran will occur. All that China and Russia can do is to prevent the legitimacy for such action at the UN. Those two countries will have to be on the look-out for any USA sponsored UN Security Council resolution that, being too broad, would allow for such bombing.
Alex
What do China’s foreign reserves have to do with anything? Most observers really have no idea that massive foreign currency reserves (such as in China in 2010, Japan in 1989, and the United States in 1929) are often as much a sign of weakness as of strength. The myth of Chinese invincibility really needs to go away; it has no real anchor in fact. But you will eventually learn, since China’s real estate markets and banks are heading for a crisis.
I cannot make sense of your post overall, either. The West has “double played the world”? What about the literal millennia of Imperial China and China’s tenuous current holdings of regions that, if given the chance, would immediately break away (East Turkestan, Tibet, Hong Kong)? It is delusional to act as if China represents a “new era” in international diplomacy. If anything, China has adopted many of the economic features of the West, adopted a definitively Western “great game” strategy re: the South China Sea, Africa, and Central Asia, and modeled itself as a Soviet Bloc-style dictatorship.
At least the U.S. has finally called China’s bluff on Korea and the South China Sea. It is about time. China’s obstruction in the case of Iran will likely end up costing thousands of lives.
Daniel
I dont think China is bluffing.Tibet and SinKiang and H.K.is an intergral part of China for a long time and western propaganda is not going to undo it.The west holier than thou attitude is disgusting.Human rights after killing and exteminating the natives of N.America and Australia.What hypocrisy and calling the country USA ,Canada and Australia.Imperial Europe and now America is a better description for the killings done in the so called new world 300 years back.What hypocrisy.What land are the Europeans occupying under the name of USA and Australia today.After the killing of the natives there is no native even to protest in N.and S America.At leat today if yo allegation is true China does not exterminate the Tibetans. Dont pontificate and dream of a property or banking crash in China.This has been a Western dream for 30 years esp about China alleged creaky state banking system.It is wonderful to have such a creaky banking system to accumulate 2.5 trillion.Dont ever even dream that China will go the way of Japan or that there will be a property bust.Carry on dreaming.Wishful dreams.Dr Mohd Mahathir former premier of Malaysia has stated that China traded with Aisa for 2000 years and took no land.The Europeans came to Malacca and within 50 years took the land and everything.That is western and not Chinese imperialism.Also tried to carve up China by western powers in 19th century with the great opium war of forcing the Chinese to buy opium at the point of a cannon.Adopted many features of the west wevwen if it is true is there anything wrong.ight poison with limited amt of poison and antidote.Let see whether China or U.S. is calling the bluff.Imperial hubris again at its best.
Ashi
An insightful article. China always sides with ‘bad boys’ and then asks for a price to disengage or prod the ‘bad boys’ to act properly.
Much like Pakistan has mastered the act of double play with regards to Taliban vis-a-vis US-NATO, China is an expert in supporting North Korea, Iran, Sudan etc )and propping their peace threatening activities) while asking for something in return to lessen the support (it never would stop it altogether) or just talk with these regimes. High time the international community calls China’s bluff and directly put sanctions on it if it continues to support North Korea and other such regimes.
Daniel
Imposing sanctions on a creditor who holds two trillion in assets????Hav u got yo maths right.Colonial subservience to allege double play by China.Is grovelling equates responsible stakeholder.The West has doubled played the world for 300 years.Wake up.