Iran-China Deal: What Does It Mean for the International Working Class?
We’re assaulted by the pandemic and inspired by mass protests against racist cops. It’s easy to lose sight of global great-power conflicts. We’d better not! As masses struggle for survival, for reforms, or even to imagine the world we really need, these conflicts still mainly shape the world we live in today.
Talks about a 25-year China-Iran military and economic deal started four years ago. An agreement seems near. China needs Iran’s oil and its strategic Mideast location. Iran, pummeled by US sanctions, needs Chinese capital and military alliances to counter the US-Israel-Saudi lineup.
Every process is a contradiction, combining unity and struggle. Where is the “struggle” here?
Iran needs to avoid a Chinese “debt-trap.” Its rulers seek to remain a regional power, not to be subordinated to Chinese imperialism.
China, on the other hand, faces a potential banking crisis. Partly that’s due to massive corruption and collusion between wealthy bankers and high government officials. But it’s also due to overextended Belt-and-Road Initiative loans. China may not be able to collect on these loans due to the Covid-19 global economic crash.
Joint naval exercises with Iran, China, and Russia, summer 2020
Chinese rulers are preparing to fight US imperialism but don’t want to risk losing one of their largest export markets by antagonizing the US over Iran. They still get most of their oil from US ally Saudi Arabia.
The Iranian rulers face sharpening class struggle. The US sanctions are wreaking economic havoc. Prices of food and other necessities are skyrocketing. Workers have launched waves of strikes since 2018. One Iranian leader admitted: “If hopelessness prevails, there could be social riots. Having relations with China and Russia can provide paths to new opportunities.”
But the Iranian rulers are divided. Another faction, led by Ahmadinejad, warns of a “debt-trap” while relying on violence to suppress the masses. Last month, a court in Iran sentenced 42 construction workers to lashes and prison for demanding their unpaid wages in a 2019 protest.
Declining US Confronts Rising China
The face-off between US and Chinese imperialism is the main contradiction shaping world events today. India, in particular, is caught in the geopolitical rivalry between the US and China over Iran.
When the Obama administration signed the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, China said, “sanctions lifted, let’s expand trade with Iran.” When the Trump administration moved out of the deal, China moved further in. The new Iran-China deal is another blow against US imperialism. Already there have been joint Iranian, Russian and Chinese military exercises in the Persian Gulf.
Most analysts agree that the US will have to “push back.” But its diplomacy is in shambles – only partly due to Trump. Its economy is in shambles – only partly due to Covid-19. Its lying promise of “democracy and human rights” stands exposed yet again, this time in the streets of US cities.
Even the US Navy isn’t looking so strong after fire destroyed an amphibious assault ship on July 12. This, after Covid-19 grounded the USS Roosevelt in April and forty other ships have reported outbreaks.
But brute force is probably still the US imperialists’ best card. They likely colluded with Israel in causing a recent series of explosions that crippled key Iranian nuclear and missile sites. Whoever wins the US presidential election, more fights will come.
The Hart-Rudman Commission report on “National Security in the 21st Century” (2001) warned that the US should prepare to fight a rising China within 25 years. That’s getting close.
This is the reality that decisively shapes the world today. That’s what the China-Iran deal means for the international working class.
A Critical Moment
Many conclude from the Covid-19 pandemic and massive protests against racist police terror that we are living in a pivotal moment. Masses are in motion – including many who never before imagined themselves marching.
“Anti-racism is good for our country,” say many activists. Most mean it’s good for the masses, but the US rulers have another idea. Their war plans require working-class youths of every description to function as one unified patriotic army. For them, as for us, this is a turning-point.
The mass movement presents huge opportunities for communist work, and huge responsibilities to do that work. This vicious racist system that exploits the whole working class cannot be reformed away. Everywhere the choice narrows: communist revolution or fascism.
A “moment” in history lasts more than a few months. Our task at this moment is to take the small steps that can add up to a qualitative change in the world situation. We must change the main contradiction from inter-imperialist rivalry to the class struggle for communism. If not before world war explodes, then in the midst of World War III.
A communist world will have no nations, no economic competition, no need for war. We call on the international working class to read more communist literature to learn how capitalism works and how communist workers’ power can change the world.
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