Singapore PM Lawrence Wong meets Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing
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Singapore PM Lawrence Wong meets Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing
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Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
What are China's economic interests in Iran?
China has stayed on the sidelines of Iran's conflict with Israel, urging a diplomatic solution. PHOTO: AFP BEIJING - China, one of Iran's closest allies and the biggest buyer of its oil, has stayed on the sidelines of its conflict with Israel, urging a diplomatic solution. Following are details of its investments in Iran. Cooperation pact Beijing has long backed US-sanctioned Tehran as part of efforts to deepen its strategic and economic heft in the Middle East. In 2021, they signed a 25-year cooperation deal, though full details were never disclosed and analysts say follow-up implementation has been weak. However, Chinese investment in Iran lags behind what Beijing puts into other nations in the region. 'Chinese state-owned companies have largely stayed away, mostly out of fear of running afoul of US sanctions,' said Dr Bill Figueroa, a China-Middle East expert at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. The American Enterprise Institute estimated that total Chinese investment since 2007 at just under US$5 billion (S$6.4 billion), while Chinese commerce ministry data shows its direct investments in Iran by the end of 2023 totalled US$3.9 billion. In contrast, Beijing invested more than US$8.1 billion in the United Arab Emirates between 2013 and 2022, and almost US$15 billion in Saudi Arabia between 2007 and 2024, the think-tank said. Energy China imports around 43 million barrels of oil per month from Iran – accounting for some 90 per cent of Iran's oil exports and roughly 13.6 per cent of China's crude purchases. Around 65 per cent of total crude and condensate shipped through the Strait of Hormuz off Iran is destined for China, according to shipping data firm Vortexa. China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) in 2016 signed a US$4.8 billion deal with France's Total to develop the offshore South Pars gas field in the Gulf with an Iranian state firm. CNPC's stake of 30 per cent was worth around US$600 million. However, the state-owned petroleum giant pulled out of the project due to US pressure in 2019. CNPC also signed a deal in 2009 to develop the North Azadegan oil field, with the first phase valued at about US$2 billion. The first cargo of 2 million barrels was shipped to China in 2016. China's biggest refiner Sinopec signed a US$2 billion deal to develop the Yadavaran oil field in 2007. In 2017, Sinopec signed a contract worth about US$2.1 billion to upgrade a refinery in Abadan near the Gulf coast. It remains under construction. In 2024, China's LDK Solar reached a deal with Iran's Ghadir Investment Group for a large-scale photovoltaic power plant with investment of around €1 billion (S$1.49 billion). It was expected to generate 2 billion kilowatt-hours of solar power annually. Railways In 2018, China National Machinery Industry Corporation signed a 5.3 billion yuan (S$945 million) deal to expand and renovate a railway connecting Tehran with the cites of Hamedan and Sanandaj to improve connectivity in west Iran. Also that year, a subsidiary of China Railway Construction Corporation signed a contract worth 3.5 billion yuan for the 263 km Kermanshah-Khosravi railway project in west Iran, with a construction period of 48 months. China's Norinco International signed an agreement in 2018 to build the first tramway line in the Iranian city of Qazvin, at about US$150 million. In 2017, China Eximbank and an Iranian state bank signed a US$1.5 billion deal to upgrade and electrify a 926km railway between Tehran and the eastern city of Mashhad as part of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative. However, the project has stalled over financing negotiations. Metals In 2017, China's Metallurgical Corporation invested around US$350 million in the Sepid Dasht steel plant and won a design contract for a pelletising project. However, local media reported that the projects were delayed by financing issues. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
China helpless as Middle East war craters regional leverage: Analysts
As Israel and Iran engaged in an unprecedented exchange of attacks, Beijing has offered little beyond calls for de-escalation. PHOTO: AFP BEIJING - China has been able to do little more than stand back and watch as war between its key partner Iran and Israel harms its hard-fought leverage in the Middle East, analysts say. Beijing has sought to frame itself as a mediator in the region, facilitating a 2023 rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran and portraying itself as a more neutral actor in the Israel-Palestinian conflict than its rival the United States. And its position as the largest purchaser of Iranian oil has served as a crucial lifeline for Tehran as its economy is battered by crippling international sanctions. But as Israel and Iran engaged in an unprecedented exchange of attacks and the United States struck key targets on Iranian soil in the past week, Beijing has offered little beyond calls for de-escalation. 'Beijing has offered Tehran no real help – just rhetoric that paints China as the principled alternative while it stays safely on the sidelines,' Mr Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies think tank, told AFP. China, he said, 'sticks to rhetoric – condemnations, UN statements, talk of 'dialogue' – because over-promising and under-delivering would spotlight its power-projection limits'. 'The result is a conspicuously thin response that underscores how little real heft China brings to Iran when the shooting starts.' 'Strategic' friendship China – alongside its 'no limits' partner Russia – has long been a key backer of Iran, deepening ties in the wake of the United States' withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal in 2018. President Xi Jinping described relations as 'strategic' in a 2023 meeting with Iran's then-president Ebrahim Raisi, and backed Tehran in its fight against 'bullying'. Retired Chinese senior colonel Liu Qiang was even more explicit in an article on the academic website Aisixiang in June . 'Iran's survival is a matter of China's national security,' said the director of the Academic Committee of the Shanghai International Center for Strategic Studies. Beijing, he insisted, must take 'proactive measures' in light of the recent war to ensure that Tehran 'will not be broken by the military conflict' or 'jointly strangled by the US and Israel'. Analysts say Beijing's ties with Tehran are central to its efforts to ensure a regional counterbalance against both the United States and Israel as well as the Gulf States. 'Iran fits into Beijing's broader campaign to counterbalance US-led hegemony and to a lesser extent Nato encroachment,' Mr Tuvia Gering, non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub, told AFP. Those efforts have gone into overdrive following blows to other 'Axis of resistance' players since the start of the Gaza war – the collapse of Mr Bashar al-Assad's rule in Syria and the degradation of Hamas and Hezbollah in fighting with Israel. 'Beijing has sought to prevent a total unravelling of Iran's regional role,' Mr Gering said, pointing to Chinese efforts to resurrect the nuclear deal. 'Little leverage' China has condemned recent US strikes on Iran and called for parties in the region, 'especially Israel', to de-escalate. And it has called for a political solution to help a declared ceasefire hold. Fighting in May between India and Pakistan saw Beijing furnish its long-time allies in Islamabad with state-of-the-art military gear. Analysts do not expect China to extend the same courtesy to its comrades in Tehran, given the risk of direct confrontation with the United States. 'Iran needs more than statements at the UN or missile components,' Dr Andrea Ghiselli, a lecturer at the University of Exeter, told AFP. 'It needs air defences and fighter jets, which are things that China could provide but would require much time to be put into use – not to mention the likely extremely negative reaction by Israel and, especially now that is directly involved, the US,' he added. The United States has urged China to use its influence on Iran to help deter its leaders from shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for oil and gas. But Dr Ahmed Aboudouh, an associate fellow with the Chatham House Middle East and North Africa Programme, was sceptical that Beijing has the leverage. 'China's position in the Middle East after this conflict' has been badly affected, he told AFP. 'Everybody in the Middle East understands that China has little leverage, if any, to play any role in de-escalation.' AFP Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Russia says NATO needs to demonise it to justify 5% defence spending target
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov waits before the talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Interim President of the Republic of Mali Assimi Goita at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia June 23, 2025. Pavel Bednyakov/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo Russia says NATO needs to demonise it to justify 5% defence spending target MOSCOW - The Kremlin said on Tuesday that NATO was on a path of rampant militarisation and bent on portraying Russia as a "fiend of hell" in order to justify committing to a big increase in member states' defence spending. Leaders of NATO, which is kicking off a two-summit in the Netherlands, have said Russia could attack a NATO state in the next few years unless it is stopped from over-running Ukraine. Russia denies any plan to attack NATO, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was "largely a wasted effort" to assure the alliance of this because it was determined to demonise Russia. "It is an alliance created for confrontation... It is not an instrument of peace and stability," he said, noting NATO's intention to get members to commit to spending 5% of their GDP on defence, as demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump. "The alliance is confidently moving along the path of rampant militarisation," Peskov said. In order to push through the 5% target, it was necessary for NATO to conjure up a demonic threat, he added. "To do this, you need to draw a picture of a fiend of hell, a monster. And the point of view of these NATO functionaries, our country is the one best suited for the role of the monster." NATO says its view of Russia is clear-eyed and based on the evidence of the war that Moscow has waged in Ukraine since February 2022. Its summit this week is intended to signal to Putin that NATO is united, despite Trump's previous criticism of the alliance, and determined to expand and upgrade its defences to deter any attack from Moscow. In a separate speech on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused NATO of moving beyond its traditional area of responsibility in an attempt to gain a foothold in the Middle East, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, the Arctic and the Asia-Pacific region. He said Russia-China relations were an "important stabiliser" in Euro-Asian security. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
