Iran though hasn’t been sitting idly by while all this is going on. Its government has been heavily lobbying South Korean officials not to apply additional sanctions, with the Iranian ambassador to Seoul quoted as telling the South Korean Joong Ang Ilbo that South Korea would only hurt itself by applying additional sanctions on its commerce with Iran.
‘Whoever is exerting or applying any sanction on Iran, first of all they are depriving themselves of good potential business opportunity…and the huge Iranian market that exists there and is open to everybody to enjoy the benefits of it,’ he said, adding that additional sanctions could threaten the ‘solid friendship’ between the two countries and could jeopardize 150,000 South Korean jobs and adversely affect some 2000 South Korean companies.
Tugged from both sides, the South Korean government has sought to straddle the two. ‘Our efforts are aimed at maintaining a cooperative relationship with the US, while at the same time sustaining our good economic ties with Iran,’ Foreign Ministry spokesman Kim Young-sun said.
And what about Japan? On August 3, a day before the arrival of the Einhorn-Glaser team, the Japanese government prudently applied the new sanctions mandated under UNSCR 1929 to all Japanese dealings with Iran. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku also stated that the government, following further study, intended to announce additional unilateral measures against Iran later that month.
The following day, at a press conference at the US Embassy in Tokyo, Einhorn stated that the Obama administration wanted the Japanese government to send ‘strong, clear signals to Iran’ by adopting additional national sanctions against Tehran that exceeded the country’s minimal obligations under UNSCR 1929. He publicly appealed to Japanese officials to uphold their reputation ‘as a leader of the global non-proliferation regime and a close ally of the United States’ and ‘play a strong role in this effort.’
Japan is perhaps even more dependent on foreign energy sources than South Korea—it’s the largest oil importer in the world, with Iran supplying a large share of these imports. In 2007, the Japanese purchased $12.75 billion worth of oil from Iran, or about 12 percent of all the crude oil Japan imported that year.
In fact, Japan purchases little else from Iran aside from oil—in 2007, crude oil comprised 96 percent of all of Japan’s imports from Iran that year. Yet, Japan also depends on its alliance with the United States for its defence, and the volume of commerce between Japan and the United States is considerably greater than that between Japan and Iran.
And, aside from the US consideration, the Japanese government is anyway strongly committed to nuclear non-proliferation and has criticized Iran’s failure to abide by UN Security Council decisions mandating a halt to its uranium enrichment programme. Meanwhile, the election of Yukiya Amano, a career Japanese diplomat, to succeed Mohamed Elbaradei as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency could make the Iranian nuclear issue more prominent in Japan.
In Tokyo, Einhorn said the US was asking Japan to take measures that ‘wouldn’t interfere in any way with Japan's energy security and its imports of oil from Iran,’ and he urged the Japanese to follow the example of the European Union, which recently adopted comprehensive sanctions to supplement those found in the latest Security Council resolution.
So will Japan fall in line? Again China looms large, with Japanese officials privately complaining to their US colleagues about the Chinese simply replacing any Japanese companies that disengage from the Iranian market.
With such concerns in mind, Einhorn and Glaser plan to visit China later this month to press Chinese officials directly on the sanctions issue. But, as was the case with US lobbying for support from China over the wars in Iraq in 1990 and 2003, China can be expected to drive a very hard bargain.
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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.