The new geostrategic alliance
Along with energy trade, investment and economic development, the China-Iran-Russia alliance has cultivated compatible foreign policies. China, Iran and Russia have identical foreign policy positions regarding Taiwan and Chechnya. China and Iran fully support the Putin government's war against the Chechen separatists (Iran's self-described status as an "Islamic republic" notwithstanding). Russia and Iran support Beijing's one-China policy. The recent promulgation of China's anti-secession law, aimed at making Beijing's intolerance of Taiwanese independence explicit, was heartily commended in both Moscow and Tehran.

The most compelling aspect of this alliance is revealed in China's and Russia's support for Iran's much-maligned nuclear energy program. The Putin government has consistently maintained that Russia would not support UN Security Council resolutions that condemn Iran's nuclear energy program or apply economic sanctions against Iran. In February, Putin said he was convinced Iran was not seeking to develop nuclear weapons and announced plans to visit the country, in support of Tehran, just prior to his summit with President Bush.

Beijing has echoed Moscow's opposition to UN action against Iran. After concluding the historic gas and oil deal between China and Iran in October 2004, China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing announced that China would not support UN Security Council action against Iran's nuclear energy program. Opposition in Moscow and Beijing to UN action against Iran is significant because both countries hold UN Security Council veto power.

The endorsement of Tehran's nuclear energy program by Moscow and Beijing reveals the primary impetus behind the China-Iran-Russia axis - to counter US unilateralism and global hegemonic intentions. For Beijing and Moscow, this means minimizing US influence in Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. For the regime in Tehran, keeping the US at bay is a matter of survival.

The joint statement issued at the conclusion of Putin's state visit to China in October 2004 was a clear indication of Beijing's and Moscow's abhorrence of the Bush administration's unilateral foreign policy. The statement noted that China and Russia "hold that it is urgently needed to [resolve] international disputes under the chairing of the UN and resolve crisis [sic] on the basis of universally recognized principles of international law. Any coercive action should only be taken with the approval of the UN Security Council and enforced under its supervision..."

Two weeks after this statement was released, and just prior to the US presidential election, Beijing's position against US unilateralism was again made explicit by China's former foreign minister Qian Qichen - arguably China's most distinguished diplomat.

In an opinion piece published in the state-controlled China Daily, Qian ripped Washington's unilateralism: "The United States has tightened its control of the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia." He noted that this control "testifies that Washington's anti-terror campaign has already gone beyond the scope of self defense". Qian went further, stating that: "The US case in Iraq has caused the Muslim world and Arab countries to believe that the superpower already regards them as targets [for] its ambitious democratic reform program."

To China and Russia, Washington's "democratic reform program" is a thinly disguised method for the US to militarily dispose of unfriendly regimes in order to ensure the country's primacy as the world's sole superpower. The China-Iran-Russia alliance can be considered as Beijing's and Moscow's counterpunch to Washington's global ambitions. From this perspective, Iran is integral to thwarting the Bush administration's foreign policy goals. This is precisely why Beijing and Moscow have strengthened their economic and diplomatic ties with Tehran. It is also why Beijing and Moscow are providing Tehran with increasingly sophisticated weapons.