The question of the day in Washington is will the People's Republic of China veto further United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran over Tehran's nuclear program?
Informed opinion says "no".
China has exercised its veto only six times in 30 years on the council. In matters core to national priorities, like punishing countries such as Guatemala and Macedonia for their ties to the Republic of China (Taiwan) and protecting the interests of Pakistan, it has acted alone.
However, on broader geopolitical issues, in recent years it has vetoed resolutions only when joined by at least one other Security Council member.
France and the United Kingdom are lined up solidly behind the United States on Iran's nuclear program, which some say is geared towards making a nuclear bomb, a charge Tehran consistently dismisses.
Russia this year is interested in improving ties with the US and Europe and has moved toward support of sanctions. No Russian veto, no Chinese veto, says the conventional wisdom.
On the other hand, chances of China voting for sanctions are slim.
A press report covering Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi's visit to Paris at the beginning of February says it all: "China Says Iran Sanctions Hinder Diplomacy."
Abstention is, therefore, China's most likely course.
Beijing's reaction might be expected to be a dismissive and a resigned shrug: a symbolic vote, another toothless round of sanctions, more political kabuki, and eventually business as usual.
However, China's expected non-vote will be accompanied by new feelings of unease and anger, reflecting Beijing's growing suspicion that an important motivation for the Iran sanctions, and the escalation of Iran tensions in general, is Washington's desire to employ the issue as a wedge against China.
In past years, China could regard US sanctions against authoritarian regimes with a certain amount of complacency. The George W Bush administration's heavy-handed approach dismayed and divided natural allies of the US and drove its targets deeper into China's embrace.
However, the Obama administration has decided to supplement brute power with smart power. It apparently promotes divisive international initiatives only when the splits in international opinion and alliances are expected to go America's way.
China first got a taste of the smart-power approach in December at the Copenhagen climate summit. The US linked the release of billions of dollars of climate adaptation aid to vulnerable developing countries with China's acceptance of a satisfactory transparency regime. Its delegation passed the message to smaller nations that China's intransigence was standing between them and billions of dollars of much-needed assistance.
Despite the treaty debacle, the geopolitical results for the Obama administration were encouraging. The European Union sided with the US. According to an internal Chinese report, a good number of Group of 77 nations were, for the large part, influenced by the American position but did not openly confront China. China cobbled together an alliance with the emerging economies of Brazil and India and, despite a concerted "blame China" effort by the US and the UK, was able to limit the political damage.
However, it was a sobering experience for Chinese diplomats. The report concluded "A conspiracy by developed nations to divide the camp of developing nations [was] a success."
Now, the Obama administration is picking on the regionally and globally unpopular government of Iran, thereby exposing China as the regime's lone international supporter of note.
The US has worked to bring the EU and Russia to its side. The EU, at least, is now an enthusiastic ally. Relieved to be dealing with a judicious and consultative American president, it no longer sees the need to accommodate a greater role for China on the world stage.
Russia has joined the American team (with sub voce reservations), reportedly in response to the Obama administration's concessions on shelving plans for a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe.
The State Department has also worked with the Gulf states to gain their support for a policy of putting Iran in its place.
As far as the China issue is concerned, America's direct solicitation of China's Security Council vote involved Obama passing the word to President Hu Jintao that China's interests would suffer if diplomatic pressure failed, Israel attacked Iran's nuclear facilities, and the price of oil went up.
It is unlikely that the Israel attack card was persuasive to the Chinese leadership, and did little more than convince them that Washington was using it as an excuse to justify an extension of US influence in the Middle East.
A pre-emptive attack by Israel to nip Iran's nuclear ambitions in the bud is unlikely.
Despite Tel Aviv's brave talk of its ability and determination to launch a raid independent of US approval, even a resounding success would probably only slow down the program a few years while earning the undying enmity of the Iranian people and the Muslim world toward Israel ... and the United States, which would have to provide Israel with flight privileges over Iraq to stage the attack.
American assertions that the Iranian nuclear program will spark a ruinous arms race in the Gulf no doubt elicited similar skepticism from China, with the unspoken observation that, since most of those arms would be supplied by the US and EU, the onus for (and profits of) an arms race would probably fall to the West.
American efforts to wedge the Arab states away from China are more likely to attract Beijing's attention and concern.
James Phillips of the Heritage Foundation spun US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's current trip to the Middle East:
Clinton will be looking to the Arabs to "act as a counterweight [to Iran] on China and help unlock its Security Council vote.
The US is hoping to use these discussions with the Arabs as a way to encourage China to look at its long-term economic interests," Phillips added. "The Arabs could let the Chinese know that it will hurt them economically with the Arab countries in the long run if China clings to this pro-Iran position.
United States protestations that all this diplomatic maneuvering directed at China is justified by the need to exhibit international unity on Iran ring hollow.
Invocation of the Israeli attack and the Gulf states arms race bogeymen notwithstanding, the primary justification for the current spasm of concern over Iran's nascent nuclear activities is the dreaded Western "impatience", which appears very similar to the manufactured impatience that sent the coalition of the willing charging into Iraq in 2003.
The stated remedy for this impatience, the UN sanctions, is unlikely to work.
Russia cares enough about its relationship with Tehran to make sure anything that gets through the Security Council will not be particularly catastrophic.
On February 11, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Ryabkov made this memorable statement: "We do not think sanctions will work, but we understand that it is impossible to get by without them in certain circumstances."
With early reports that a massive government presence marginalized Green Movement demonstrators on the February 11 anniversary of the Iranian revolution of 1979, regime change in Iran is probably off the table, too.
Even if a new regime came to power, Iran's national commitment to nuclear power - and the perceived nuclear weapons threat to the region - would probably remain unchanged.
By conventional geopolitical logic, China would seem to have the right idea: more jaw-jaw and engagement or, as it called for in a recent editorial, "patience, patience and more patience."
But US policy seems to be moving in the opposite direction, stoking the crisis instead of lowering the heat.
So what's China's takeaway from the Iran crisis?
Absent an immediate, credible threat of an Israeli attack on Iran, the US is rushing the international community toward "crushing sanctions" on Tehran that, if carried out, would result in disruption of Iran's energy exports.
If this were to actually occur, the big loser in the Iran crisis would be China.
As a Chinese analyst told Reuters: "Fully going with Western expansion of sanctions on Iran so they restrict Iran's energy exports would amount to disguised sanctions against China, and China certainly won't agree," Wang Feng, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the Global Times, a Chinese newspaper published on Thursday.
Reportedly, the US had advised China it would dispatch Hillary Clinton to visit Iran's enemies in the Persian Gulf and ensure that, if sanctions disrupted the supply of Iranian oil, Saudi Arabia and its associates would ensure that China's petroleum needs would continue to be met.
It is unlikely that China's vision of its energy security involves relying on the US's good offices to deal with the consequences of a US-imposed policy that it rejects and had no voice in formulating.
In any case, the prospects for an oil-price Armageddon are unlikely. Given free-market realities and the greed of oil producers inside and outside the Gulf, the world would suffer as much as China if Iranian crude disappeared from the market.
For Beijing, the biggest concern is its perception that Europe, Russia and the Gulf states are signing on to an anti-Iran initiative that could impact China's interests in such a major way without accommodating China's priorities.
From Beijing's point of view, China is the main superpower stakeholder in the Iran crisis.
So it is asking why isn't it being consulted? Indeed, why aren't its critical interests given priority, instead of subjecting it to moonshine about an Israeli attack, an arms race in the Gulf and lectures about its geopolitical interests?
China is not a threat to the international order, but it is its most independent and uncontrollable element. There are growing signs of a shared consensus in the West that reliance on China as a stabilizing financial, economic and geopolitical factor must be reduced.
The past few years have been good to China's competitors - especially India - and bad for China's allies - Pakistan and Iran.
By accident or design, the Obama administration's decision to heat up the Iran controversy has driven another wedge between China and the US, the EU, the Gulf states and even Russia.
The issue for China is whether the purpose of America's Iran campaign is to isolate Iran ... or to isolate China? This is a consequence of China's participation in the security initiatives that the US chooses to organize to protect and promote its own and loyal allies' interests.
China responded to the escalation of the Iran nuclear crisis with a remarkable lead editorial in the Global Times, the international affairs organ of People's Daily, the government mouthpiece,.
The editorial, with the eye-catching title "Iran and the West: Neither Should Think of Taking China Hostage", painted China as the victim of the standoff. In an effort to be even-handed, both Iran and the West are criticized for their intransigence.
Nevertheless, both the West and Iran are unheeding at this time. They both believe that only if they are unyielding, then the other side will back off. This unenlightened attitude even extends to their attitude toward China. Both sides believe that all that's needed is to put pressure on China, then China will, without considering its own interests ... lower its head to them ... This thinking is unrealistic.
The use of the loaded term, "lower its head", conjuring images of the humiliating kowtow, instead of a more neutral term such as "support one or the other" is an indication that red lines are being drawn.
The fact that China's main worry is the West, and not Iran, is unambiguously conveyed in the editorial's conclusion.
Recently in Western public opinion has been a call to use the Iran issue to isolate China. This is extremely superficial ... China is a big country and its interests must be respected. China's dilemma must be sympathized with. China's proposal opposing sanctions must be understood. The big powers must cooperate and negotiate on the Iran issue ...
China is a great country. If anyone seeks to compel her, to injure her, they will certainly pay the price. Pretty strong stuff.
The editorial is a clear indication that China considers itself the target - or at least intended collateral damage - in America's anti-Iran campaign. It makes the case that, if the Obama administration sincerely cared about its relationship with China, Washington would back off from the sanctions campaign and allow negotiations to continue.
But that doesn't look like it's going to happen.
Sanctions will probably go ahead, with China either abstaining or throwing in a tactical "yes" vote to postpone an overt breach, and Washington will obtain another point of leverage against China in the Persian Gulf.
If that happens, China will have to think about adjusting to a new world situation in which the West seems less interested in bargaining for its support or respecting its interests.
Informed opinion says "no".
China has exercised its veto only six times in 30 years on the council. In matters core to national priorities, like punishing countries such as Guatemala and Macedonia for their ties to the Republic of China (Taiwan) and protecting the interests of Pakistan, it has acted alone.
However, on broader geopolitical issues, in recent years it has vetoed resolutions only when joined by at least one other Security Council member.
France and the United Kingdom are lined up solidly behind the United States on Iran's nuclear program, which some say is geared towards making a nuclear bomb, a charge Tehran consistently dismisses.
Russia this year is interested in improving ties with the US and Europe and has moved toward support of sanctions. No Russian veto, no Chinese veto, says the conventional wisdom.
On the other hand, chances of China voting for sanctions are slim.
A press report covering Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi's visit to Paris at the beginning of February says it all: "China Says Iran Sanctions Hinder Diplomacy."
Abstention is, therefore, China's most likely course.
Beijing's reaction might be expected to be a dismissive and a resigned shrug: a symbolic vote, another toothless round of sanctions, more political kabuki, and eventually business as usual.
However, China's expected non-vote will be accompanied by new feelings of unease and anger, reflecting Beijing's growing suspicion that an important motivation for the Iran sanctions, and the escalation of Iran tensions in general, is Washington's desire to employ the issue as a wedge against China.
In past years, China could regard US sanctions against authoritarian regimes with a certain amount of complacency. The George W Bush administration's heavy-handed approach dismayed and divided natural allies of the US and drove its targets deeper into China's embrace.
However, the Obama administration has decided to supplement brute power with smart power. It apparently promotes divisive international initiatives only when the splits in international opinion and alliances are expected to go America's way.
China first got a taste of the smart-power approach in December at the Copenhagen climate summit. The US linked the release of billions of dollars of climate adaptation aid to vulnerable developing countries with China's acceptance of a satisfactory transparency regime. Its delegation passed the message to smaller nations that China's intransigence was standing between them and billions of dollars of much-needed assistance.
Despite the treaty debacle, the geopolitical results for the Obama administration were encouraging. The European Union sided with the US. According to an internal Chinese report, a good number of Group of 77 nations were, for the large part, influenced by the American position but did not openly confront China. China cobbled together an alliance with the emerging economies of Brazil and India and, despite a concerted "blame China" effort by the US and the UK, was able to limit the political damage.
However, it was a sobering experience for Chinese diplomats. The report concluded "A conspiracy by developed nations to divide the camp of developing nations [was] a success."
Now, the Obama administration is picking on the regionally and globally unpopular government of Iran, thereby exposing China as the regime's lone international supporter of note.
The US has worked to bring the EU and Russia to its side. The EU, at least, is now an enthusiastic ally. Relieved to be dealing with a judicious and consultative American president, it no longer sees the need to accommodate a greater role for China on the world stage.
Russia has joined the American team (with sub voce reservations), reportedly in response to the Obama administration's concessions on shelving plans for a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe.
The State Department has also worked with the Gulf states to gain their support for a policy of putting Iran in its place.
As far as the China issue is concerned, America's direct solicitation of China's Security Council vote involved Obama passing the word to President Hu Jintao that China's interests would suffer if diplomatic pressure failed, Israel attacked Iran's nuclear facilities, and the price of oil went up.
It is unlikely that the Israel attack card was persuasive to the Chinese leadership, and did little more than convince them that Washington was using it as an excuse to justify an extension of US influence in the Middle East.
A pre-emptive attack by Israel to nip Iran's nuclear ambitions in the bud is unlikely.
Despite Tel Aviv's brave talk of its ability and determination to launch a raid independent of US approval, even a resounding success would probably only slow down the program a few years while earning the undying enmity of the Iranian people and the Muslim world toward Israel ... and the United States, which would have to provide Israel with flight privileges over Iraq to stage the attack.
American assertions that the Iranian nuclear program will spark a ruinous arms race in the Gulf no doubt elicited similar skepticism from China, with the unspoken observation that, since most of those arms would be supplied by the US and EU, the onus for (and profits of) an arms race would probably fall to the West.
American efforts to wedge the Arab states away from China are more likely to attract Beijing's attention and concern.
James Phillips of the Heritage Foundation spun US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's current trip to the Middle East:
Clinton will be looking to the Arabs to "act as a counterweight [to Iran] on China and help unlock its Security Council vote.
The US is hoping to use these discussions with the Arabs as a way to encourage China to look at its long-term economic interests," Phillips added. "The Arabs could let the Chinese know that it will hurt them economically with the Arab countries in the long run if China clings to this pro-Iran position.
United States protestations that all this diplomatic maneuvering directed at China is justified by the need to exhibit international unity on Iran ring hollow.
Invocation of the Israeli attack and the Gulf states arms race bogeymen notwithstanding, the primary justification for the current spasm of concern over Iran's nascent nuclear activities is the dreaded Western "impatience", which appears very similar to the manufactured impatience that sent the coalition of the willing charging into Iraq in 2003.
The stated remedy for this impatience, the UN sanctions, is unlikely to work.
Russia cares enough about its relationship with Tehran to make sure anything that gets through the Security Council will not be particularly catastrophic.
On February 11, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Ryabkov made this memorable statement: "We do not think sanctions will work, but we understand that it is impossible to get by without them in certain circumstances."
With early reports that a massive government presence marginalized Green Movement demonstrators on the February 11 anniversary of the Iranian revolution of 1979, regime change in Iran is probably off the table, too.
Even if a new regime came to power, Iran's national commitment to nuclear power - and the perceived nuclear weapons threat to the region - would probably remain unchanged.
By conventional geopolitical logic, China would seem to have the right idea: more jaw-jaw and engagement or, as it called for in a recent editorial, "patience, patience and more patience."
But US policy seems to be moving in the opposite direction, stoking the crisis instead of lowering the heat.
So what's China's takeaway from the Iran crisis?
Absent an immediate, credible threat of an Israeli attack on Iran, the US is rushing the international community toward "crushing sanctions" on Tehran that, if carried out, would result in disruption of Iran's energy exports.
If this were to actually occur, the big loser in the Iran crisis would be China.
As a Chinese analyst told Reuters: "Fully going with Western expansion of sanctions on Iran so they restrict Iran's energy exports would amount to disguised sanctions against China, and China certainly won't agree," Wang Feng, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the Global Times, a Chinese newspaper published on Thursday.
Reportedly, the US had advised China it would dispatch Hillary Clinton to visit Iran's enemies in the Persian Gulf and ensure that, if sanctions disrupted the supply of Iranian oil, Saudi Arabia and its associates would ensure that China's petroleum needs would continue to be met.
It is unlikely that China's vision of its energy security involves relying on the US's good offices to deal with the consequences of a US-imposed policy that it rejects and had no voice in formulating.
In any case, the prospects for an oil-price Armageddon are unlikely. Given free-market realities and the greed of oil producers inside and outside the Gulf, the world would suffer as much as China if Iranian crude disappeared from the market.
For Beijing, the biggest concern is its perception that Europe, Russia and the Gulf states are signing on to an anti-Iran initiative that could impact China's interests in such a major way without accommodating China's priorities.
From Beijing's point of view, China is the main superpower stakeholder in the Iran crisis.
So it is asking why isn't it being consulted? Indeed, why aren't its critical interests given priority, instead of subjecting it to moonshine about an Israeli attack, an arms race in the Gulf and lectures about its geopolitical interests?
China is not a threat to the international order, but it is its most independent and uncontrollable element. There are growing signs of a shared consensus in the West that reliance on China as a stabilizing financial, economic and geopolitical factor must be reduced.
The past few years have been good to China's competitors - especially India - and bad for China's allies - Pakistan and Iran.
By accident or design, the Obama administration's decision to heat up the Iran controversy has driven another wedge between China and the US, the EU, the Gulf states and even Russia.
The issue for China is whether the purpose of America's Iran campaign is to isolate Iran ... or to isolate China? This is a consequence of China's participation in the security initiatives that the US chooses to organize to protect and promote its own and loyal allies' interests.
China responded to the escalation of the Iran nuclear crisis with a remarkable lead editorial in the Global Times, the international affairs organ of People's Daily, the government mouthpiece,.
The editorial, with the eye-catching title "Iran and the West: Neither Should Think of Taking China Hostage", painted China as the victim of the standoff. In an effort to be even-handed, both Iran and the West are criticized for their intransigence.
Nevertheless, both the West and Iran are unheeding at this time. They both believe that only if they are unyielding, then the other side will back off. This unenlightened attitude even extends to their attitude toward China. Both sides believe that all that's needed is to put pressure on China, then China will, without considering its own interests ... lower its head to them ... This thinking is unrealistic.
The use of the loaded term, "lower its head", conjuring images of the humiliating kowtow, instead of a more neutral term such as "support one or the other" is an indication that red lines are being drawn.
The fact that China's main worry is the West, and not Iran, is unambiguously conveyed in the editorial's conclusion.
Recently in Western public opinion has been a call to use the Iran issue to isolate China. This is extremely superficial ... China is a big country and its interests must be respected. China's dilemma must be sympathized with. China's proposal opposing sanctions must be understood. The big powers must cooperate and negotiate on the Iran issue ...
China is a great country. If anyone seeks to compel her, to injure her, they will certainly pay the price. Pretty strong stuff.
The editorial is a clear indication that China considers itself the target - or at least intended collateral damage - in America's anti-Iran campaign. It makes the case that, if the Obama administration sincerely cared about its relationship with China, Washington would back off from the sanctions campaign and allow negotiations to continue.
But that doesn't look like it's going to happen.
Sanctions will probably go ahead, with China either abstaining or throwing in a tactical "yes" vote to postpone an overt breach, and Washington will obtain another point of leverage against China in the Persian Gulf.
If that happens, China will have to think about adjusting to a new world situation in which the West seems less interested in bargaining for its support or respecting its interests.
