Unfaithful Allies: A Rift in Iran’s Alliance with the East
Unfaithful Allies: A Rift in Iran’s Alliance with the East
The shipment of Iranian drones and ballistic missiles to Russia for use in the Ukraine war, along with heavily discounted oil exports to China during a crisis where Israel and the U.S. intensified their airstrikes, brought no benefit to the Islamic Republic. This issue has led to serious doubts about the unity and alignment of the countries in the anti-Western axis.
At a time when Moscow was benefiting from the support of Tehran, Beijing, and Pyongyang in its military aggression against Ukraine, some Western officials expressed concern about the birth of a new anti-Western bloc.
However, during Iran’s military confrontation with Israel or when Iran’s nuclear facilities were targeted by the U.S. military, none of these three countries—Russia, China, or North Korea—took any effective action to support Iran.
Russia and China, considered the main pillars of this informal alliance, merely limited themselves to verbal opposition to Washington’s actions and refrained from any military assistance or tangible support to Iran.
Alexander Gabuev, head of the Russia and Eurasia Studies Center at the Carnegie Institute, told the New York Times that these countries act entirely based on their own interests and are unwilling to get involved in each other’s wars. Unlike the United States and its allies, these states lack shared structures, values, and stable institutions.
The four countries often referred to as the anti-Western bloc all have authoritarian regimes and hostile stances towards the United States, a country that has questioned their political legitimacy for years and sought to undermine their global standing.
These countries attempt to neutralize U.S.-imposed sanctions through strategic cooperation, military technology exchanges, and economic trade.
Michael Kimmage, a history professor at the Catholic University of America and a former official at the U.S. State Department, believes that coordination between China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia is very limited. They merely share a common opposition to U.S. policies and occasionally engage in negotiations with each other, but there is no real operational cohesion or strategic synergy among them. Among these countries, only Russia and North Korea have a defense pact.
In addition to sending weapons to Russia, Pyongyang has dispatched over fourteen thousand troops to participate in the war against Ukraine alongside Russian forces. The bond between these two countries dates back to the historical era of the Soviet Union and the Korean War in the 1950s, when Maoist China was also aligned with them.
This historical background also forms the foundation of the deep relationship between China and Russia, a relationship that is highly significant in the foreign policy equations of the United States and its allies.
Over the years, the leaders of these two countries have established strong personal relationships, and only shortly before Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, they spoke of a partnership without limits.
Nonetheless, China has continued to try to portray an image of adherence to certain international principles, principles that the U.S. promoted before the Trump presidency. For this reason, Beijing has refrained from directly supplying weapons to Moscow.
However, American officials believe that China has played a key role in revitalizing Russia’s defense industries and remains one of the main purchasers of its oil.
On the other hand, the relations between Tehran and Moscow have never reached the level of China-Russia relations. One of the serious obstacles in this path is the religious nature of Iran’s government, a factor that has led secular and socialist states like Russia, China, and North Korea to view the Islamic Republic with suspicion.
Russia and China, in particular, are fearful of the growth of extremist Islamist movements. Chinese President Xi Jinping has even implemented repressive measures against moderate Muslims, including the Uyghurs and Kazakhs in the northwest of the country.
Sergey Radchenko, a Cold War historian at Johns Hopkins University, emphasized in an interview with the New York Times that there are no real shared values among these countries, only some general slogans in defense of a multipolar world order. At the same time, there are deep differences between them, which Putin has acknowledged.
He has openly stated that his relations with Iran’s neighboring countries, including Israel and some Arab countries, are more important to him than a partnership with Tehran. He added that Putin is a cynical and opportunistic player who only thinks of his strategic interests and, if necessary, would undoubtedly sacrifice Iran. Such an understanding also exists within Iran itself.
In the case of the military confrontation between Iran and Israel, China also played a minimal role and took a neutral stance. Xi Jinping merely called on all parties to work towards de-escalation.
During Trump’s presidency, when a military operation against Iran was ordered, Beijing issued a strong statement accusing the U.S. of violating the UN Charter, but again, no practical support for Iran was provided. China usually adopts a policy of neutrality in the face of regional crises to avoid endangering its long-term interests.
In recent years, China has sought to expand its relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two of Iran’s major regional rivals. The potential expansion of a regional war could threaten Beijing’s oil imports from these countries. Therefore, China is interested in containing crises rather than fueling them. China’s willingness to play a neutral mediator role in the Middle East was clearly demonstrated in March 2023 during the diplomatic agreement between Tehran and Riyadh. At the same time, Beijing sought to strengthen its relations with Syria, Iran’s strategic ally in the region.
Enrico Fardella, a professor at the University of Naples and a former researcher at Peking University, believes that now that Iran has been weakened by war and the Assad regime has lost its position against the rebels, China is cautiously assessing the situation to determine which forces—governments, political groups, or non-state actors—will ultimately have the upper hand in the region.
However, Yun Sun, a foreign policy expert on China at the Stimson Center in Washington, says that using the term axis to describe the relations between China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea still makes sense. She emphasizes that although these countries lack formal defense treaties, their shared anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-liberal democracy views have brought them closer together.
She clarifies that an alliance, even if not based on a commitment to mutual defense, is still considered an alliance. The fact that these countries do not directly enter battles to defend each other does not mean their cooperation is worthless.
China has provided nuclear and missile technology to Iran, financed Russia’s war, and assisted in the survival of North Korea.
However, Yun Sun emphasizes that China’s support for Iran is limited and conditional. According to her, Chinese officials are distrustful of Iran’s religious government structure and see it as lacking the necessary strategic coherence for a sustainable partnership. The Chinese perceive the Islamic Republic as overly naive, opportunistic, unstable, and unreliable in the field of foreign policy.
She also added that from Beijing’s perspective, Iran—like North Korea—is an isolated and dependent country that, even in the event of strained relations or temporary tensions, is compelled to maintain interactions with China because it has few alternative options.