Deepening China-Iran ties pose a new challenge for India

First Post

12-07-2025

India, for its part, must keep a watch on the Beijing-Tehran-Islamabad nexus, though West Asia will not be an easy sail for China either read more
Iran is still reeling from the 12-day conflict with Israel and the June 22 US Air Force and Navy strike on its nuclear facilities. The confrontation has pushed West Asia to the edge of a new regional order—one in which Israel sought to assert itself as an unrestrained military force. While framed as targeted attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, the Israeli offensive significantly degraded Iran's broader offensive and defensive military capabilities. Once reliant on American-made fighter jets and defence systems, post-revolutionary Iran pivoted to Soviet and later Russian military hardware while gradually developing a robust domestic defence industry. In recent years, Iran has also incorporated a growing number of Chinese weapons systems into its arsenal.
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China also has increasing interests in Iranian energy supplies. China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently said in France, 'The United States shamelessly bombed the nuclear facilities of a sovereign country, Iran. This is a dangerous precedent. If it causes a nuclear disaster, the entire world will pay the price. If national power alone decides right and wrong, where are the rules? Where is justice? This so-called strength will not bring real peace. It will open Pandora's Box. Are weaker nations, especially small ones, just meals served up on the table for the powerful?'
China's Energy Imports from Iran
China is a major importer of Iranian oil, with figures reaching record levels in June 2025, averaging over 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd). Despite US sanctions aimed at limiting Iran's oil revenue, China continues to import a large volume of Iranian crude, with an estimated 90 percent of Iran's oil exports going to China. To circumvent US sanctions, China has been able to maintain and even increase its imports, largely through the use of 'shadow fleets' and other workarounds.
China's reliance on Iranian oil has led to a complex trade relationship, with Iran heavily dependent on China for oil revenue. This dynamic has been described as a 'colonial trap' by some Iranian officials. Any disruption to Iran's oil exports, whether due to conflict or stricter sanctions, could have significant consequences for China's energy supply and economy. Conversely, it will also be bad for the Iranian economy.
Iranian Defence Equipment—China Emerging as a Source
Iran possesses a diverse range of military assets, including domestically produced and imported equipment. Iran has a substantial number of battle tanks, infantry vehicles, and artillery pieces of American, Russian, and local makes. These included American F-14 Tomcat, McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, and Northrop F-5 Tiger II fighters; Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport aircraft; and heavy and utility helicopters. They have Russian MiG-29, Sukhoi Su-24, and S-22 fighters; Mil Mi-17; T-72 tanks; S-400 AD systems; infantry fighting vehicles; towed howitzers; short-range ballistic missiles; KamAZ-43114 heavy trucks; and Russian Kilo-class submarines, among others.
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Clearly, Iran's air force is severely outdated and ill-equipped to confront modern adversaries. Iran desperately needs fighter aircraft and air defence systems. Iran is grappling with the need to overhaul its shattered air defence system and intelligence apparatus.
China has long supported Iran's ballistic missile program and backed it with dual-use industrial inputs for missile production. Iran has been inducting Chinese equipment for the last nearly three decades. These include Chengdu J-7 fighters, multiple rocket launcher systems, 155-mm howitzers, and anti-ship missiles. After suffering major losses in the recently concluded '12-day War', Iran is reportedly mulling the purchase of Chinese J-10C (Vigorous Dragon) fighter jets. They are looking at ground-based air-defence weapons and PL-15 class air-to-air missiles (AAM).
In the spring of 2023, Iranian officials negotiated in Beijing and Moscow to replenish Tehran's stores of ammonium perchlorate, important for ballistic missile solid propellant. China has conducted regular maritime cooperation with Iran, boosting Beijing's presence in the Persian Gulf. China has provided material and intelligence support to the Iran-backed Houthis. Clearly China is emerging as a potential, perhaps even desirable, alternative to Russia. But China's attempt to keep channels open with the US and its relations with Iran's regional rivals contribute to its disinclination to beef up Iran's military.
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Befriending Iran—Advantage China
Benefits for Beijing from increased defence cooperation with Tehran in wooing a Middle Eastern partner, which is on its knees and desperately needs more powerful friends, are obvious. China would get to consolidate an alternative energy corridor that bypasses traditional maritime choke points like the Strait of Malacca and the Bab el-Mandeb. Iranian infrastructure can be connected to China through the already underway China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Pakistan. Iran could further be linked to Iraqi oil infrastructure. China could be a direct investor and ensure its security. Such routing will also support its 'Iron Brother', Pakistan.
Increased defence ties with Tehran would give Beijing greater influence over the Strait of Hormuz. China would also be exercising a little greater control to support moderating Iranian foreign policy. It will also increase China's geopolitical status in Central and West Asia. It could serve both deterrence and stability. It would also help China partly reduce Russian and American influence in the region.
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China's Increased Influence Detrimental for India
China's increasing influence over Iran could affect Indian influence across Central Asia. Iran is conscious of how India got pressured by the US-led sanctions in 2018 and halted oil imports from Tehran. India's pro-Israel ideological approach and close linkages with Tel Aviv in defence, cyber, and agriculture make Iran doubtful about India. Though Tehran would have preferred a much softer India, with which it has had civilisational linkages, current realpolitik realities have created space for Beijing to step in. China can more easily stand up to Iran's arch-opponent, the US.
If Beijing becomes Tehran's significant defence partner, it would frustrate Indian attempts to penetrate this important defence exports market. If Iran joins the CPEC, Pakistan gets defence in depth. One can recall that in both the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pakistan wars, Iran had offered shelter to Pakistani fighter aircraft. China's greater influence could adversely affect India's efforts to connect with Russia, Europe, Central Asia, and Afghanistan via the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), the starting point for which is the India-funded 'Shahid Beheshti' terminal at Chabahar port. If Iran concedes to the Chinese request to invest its stake in Chabahar, the INSTC would be seriously affected. China could thus outmanoeuvre India and actually punish it for not supporting Xi Jinping's flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
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Currently, Iran has no choice but to align with China. The Beijing-Tehran-Islamabad nexus will surely complicate things for India. India has developed countervailing close relations with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others. But Chinese economic and military might would make others cautious. With diminishing American power, its influence in the region is also likely to be reduced. A space that China is keen to occupy.
Not All Smooth Sailing for China
While China finds an opportunity in pushing its relations with Iran, getting into West Asia is a very complex power play, and many powers have trod very carefully in the past or burnt fingers. Getting openly closer to Iran could bother other equally important players in the region. Backing a theological, somewhat unpopular regime also doesn't go well with Communist Chinese thinking. What China is doing to Uighurs in its own backyard is indicative. China would also anger the US and Europe, both of which are important markets for China. Pakistan is already playing a very balancing game between China and the US and will be careful in this geo-play. The US president has already read the 'riot act' to the Pakistan Army chief in a luncheon meeting in Washington recently. Will China risk getting too close to a country at the threshold of getting a nuclear weapon or be seen as supporting such an activity? China also has to balance its relations with Israel, which has significant global influence and lobbies, and the two are involved in major economic and technological cooperation.
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To Summarise
The China-Iran Comprehensive Strategic Partnership was signed in 2021. Both are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). These two allow sufficient contact between the two. For China to get too close to Iran is like stepping into quicksand. Should it risk getting into the murky entanglement that could challenge its broader objectives in the region? Would China like to antagonise a significant part of the world, which would be happy to see a regime change and a more open and democratic Iran?
China's increased relationship with Iran will also affect its economic ties with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. No act should allow Iran to get emboldened for regional adventurism. Even Russia has been cautious in its comments on the Iran-Israel conflict. Nearly a third of all Jews in Israel are of former Soviet origin. China and its firms would be concerned about US-backed sanctions. Engagement with Iran cannot be more important than its continued freer trade with the West. Backing the current regime can backfire. Conversely, some believe that with greater leverage over Iran, China could play a greater statesmanlike role in the region and also rein in Iran. Beijing is likely to be pragmatic and low-key.
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India-Iran relations have been vacillating and somewhat complex. India did not welcome the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran's continued support for Pakistan in the India-Pakistan conflicts and India's close relations with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War strained the bilateral ties. Though in the 1990s, both India and Iran supported the Northern Alliance against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the latter of which received overt Pakistani backing and ruled most of the country until the 2001 United States-led invasion. They continued to collaborate in supporting the broad-based anti-Taliban government, led by Ashraf Ghani and backed by the international community, until the Taliban captured Kabul in 2021 and re-established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
India and Iran signed a defence cooperation agreement in December 2002. Iran has historically been the third-largest supplier of petroleum to India; however, these exports have fallen dramatically within the past decade, and India imported a negligible amount of oil from Iran by the early 2020s. Instead, China has become the largest importer of Iranian oil, accounting for 90 per cent of Iranian oil exports.
Despite the two countries having some common strategic interests, India and Iran differ significantly on key foreign policy issues. India has expressed strong opposition to Iran's nuclear programme and while both nations continue to oppose the Taliban, India supported the presence of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, unlike Iran. India has also consistently voiced stronger support for Israel than for Iran in the 2020s. There are differences between the two on Islamic terrorism. While India has made infrastructural (highway) investments in Iran, the connectivity dividend has yet to accrue. The completion and operationalisation of the North–South Transport Corridor seems far.
For India, it is best to wait and watch. No need to get paranoid. Maintain good diplomatic contact with Iran, continue pushing economic engagements, and try to find areas of defence exports. Keep options and avenues for acquiring oil open. Keep people-to-people contacts going, and India must continue to export soft power. In a nutshell, India must keep monitoring China-Iran-Pakistan engagement, maintain good relations with Russia, Israel, the US, Europe, and all countries in West Asia, and retain strategic autonomy.
The writer is former Director General, Centre for Air Power Studies. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views.