China says Iran sanctions no cure
BEIJING |
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Foreign Minister said on Sunday new sanctions on Iran will not solve the standoff over its nuclear program, while chiding the United States after two months of tensions between the big powers.
"As everyone knows, pressure and sanctions are not the fundamental way forward to resolving the Iran nuclear issue, and cannot fundamentally solve this issue," Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told a news conference on the sidelines of China's annual parliament.
Washington and other Western powers want China to approve a proposed United Nations resolution imposing new sanctions on Tehran, which they say wants the means to make nuclear weapons and has violated non-proliferation safeguards.
Beijing has previously resisted calls for harsh sanctions against Iran, a big source of oil for China, and Yang emphasized his government's reluctance, while stopping short of outright opposing any new U.N. resolution.
"Frankly speaking, there are some difficulties surrounding efforts to settle the Iranian nuclear issue at present, but we don't think diplomatic efforts have been exhausted," he said.
Tehran denies it wants to build an atomic bomb and says its uranium enrichment is for future electricity generation and for medical isotopes.
IMPORTS IRANIAN OIL
A draft Western document proposes restricting more Iranian banks abroad, but does not call for sanctions against Iran's oil and gas industries.
China is one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, each holding the power to veto resolutions.
Beijing has long said sanctions are not an effective tool for resolving international disputes, including over Iran, which is a major source of crude oil for China.
China has backed previous U.N. resolutions against Iran, after working to cut out proposed measures that could threaten flows of oil and Chinese investments.
"Yang has restated China's basic position that the focus has to be on diplomacy," said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.
"China will bargain in the Security Council, and if the sanctions can be weakened enough, then naturally China will vote for them as it has for previous resolutions (about Iran)," said Shi.
"It will be up to how far the United States and other Western countries are willing to dilute their demands," he added. "China wants a resolution without many teeth."
Shi said China would be wary of sanctions on Iranian banks that could entangle its energy imports from Iran, the fast-growing Asian economy's third biggest foreign supplier of crude oil last year.
US TIES STRAINED
The Iran nuclear dispute is one of a number of issues that are testing ties between China and the United States.
The two countries have tussled recently over trade, Chinese internet controls, U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan, and President Barack Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader.
Beijing considers Taiwan an illegitimate breakaway from mainland rule, and reviles the Dalai Lama as a "separatist" for seeking self-rule for his homeland.
This week, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg visited Beijing to seek to ease friction and discuss the Iran nuclear dispute.
Yang said relations between the two powers had been seriously upset, and he blamed Washington.
"I believe the United States understands very well China's core interests and major concerns," he said, referring to Taiwan and Tibet.
Beijing has not yet acted on its threat to sanction U.S. companies involved in $6.4 billion of new arms sales to Taiwan that the Obama administration moved forward with in late January.
Yang said it was wrong to say China had become hawkish.
"Resolutely adhering to one's principled stance is not the same thing as being hardline," he said.
Shi, the professor, said Yang's comments indicated that China has misgivings about the Obama administration.
"China doesn't want confrontation, but is not rushing to fully restore relations with the United States," he said.
(Additional reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Bill Tarrant)
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I can understand why China would not support sanctions against Iran being they require the oil Iran provides–it’s in the security interest of that nation. Likewise, When we invaded Iraq I did not believe it was necessary but I supported it because my president said Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction”. Long after that invasion we are still there “nation building” and now the only reason I can see for us to have ever gone in there in the first place (which was finally admitted) was because we–the U.S.–wanted to secure an oil supply for ourselves because oil is a national security interest for us just as it is for China.
There are ways to allow the limited proliferation of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes–such as energy and medical–without the use of sanctions against nations we feel may misuse that technology.
Considering our dishonorable conduct in forcefully taking the resources of other nations because it is in the interest of our nation can anyone blame Iran or North Korea for wanting nuclear weapons? Is it not in their nations security interest? Of course it is and although they may claim it is for peaceful purposes why not give them the benefit of the doubt by doing as China says: use diplomacy.
We are much to blame for the way the rest of the world sees us and react toward us and if we are truly interested in preventing nuclear proliferation then we must stop using war as a means of attaining what we want while denying these nations a means of defending themselves against our greed and injustice.
Why not use diplomacy? We can start by offering some of our technology to solve some of the problems these nations face. Sanctions have been in place for many years against many nations yet these nations continue to do–and attaining–the very things that the sanction were supposed to prevent or curtail. Sanctions, at best, merely put off the time frame in which these nations attain to their goal and when they finally do attain to it we suffer all the more because we are seen as an obstacle that they overcame once and can do so again–we become nothing more than a mere nuisance.
For this Western nations will pay a high price of lost trust. Especially of those living in future superpowers of the East.
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