Between China and Iran, a twenty-five-year strategic and commercial pact

We do not yet know the details of the contract, but its length is very engaging: it will run over a quarter of a century. Iran and China in fact concluded this Saturday in Tehran a twenty-five-year strategic and commercial cooperation agreement, which had been under discussion for years. According to the official Irna agency, the final details of the agreement were finalized in the morning.

The signing of this pact illustrates the priority given by Tehran to relations with “the East” (China, the two Koreas, India, Japan, Russia, etc.), in accordance with the inflection given by Khamenei in 2018.

Beijing present in 130 countries

This agreement is far from coincidence, since China is the Islamic Republic of Iran’s largest trading partner, and was one of the main buyers of Iranian crude before the reinstatement in 2018 of US sanctions against the sector. energy of the country. For Beijing, it is part of its vast infrastructure project launched with more than 130 countries.

This rapprochement occurs in a climate of heightened mistrust of the Islamic Republic vis-à-vis the West, and in a period of tension between Washington on the one hand and Tehran and Beijing on the other.