China and Iran on trade and military partnership

• Iran and China have quietly drafted a sweeping economic and security partnership that would clear the way for billions of dollars of Chinese investments in energy and other sectors.

Key highlights:

• It aims at undercutting the Trump administration’s efforts to isolate the Iranian government because of its nuclear and military ambitions.

• The partnership, detailed in an 18-page proposed agreement obtained by The New York Times, would vastly expand Chinese presence in banking, telecommunications, ports, railways and dozens of other projects.

• In exchange, China would receive a regular — and, according to an Iranian official and an oil trader, heavily discounted — supply of Iranian oil over the next 25 years.

• The document also describes deepening military cooperation, potentially giving China a foothold in a region that has been a strategic preoccupation of the United States for decades.

• It calls for joint training and exercises, joint research and weapons development and intelligence sharing — all to fight “the lopsided battle with terrorism, drug and human trafficking and cross-border crimes.”

Comment:

• This would clear the way for billions of dollars of Chinese investments in energy and other sectors, undercutting the Donald Trump administration’s efforts to isolate the Iranian government because of its nuclear and military ambitions.

• It represents a major blow to the Trump administration’s aggressive policy toward Iran since abandoning the nuclear deal reached in 2015 by President Barack Obama and the leaders of six other nations after two years of gruelling negotiate.