China and America in the Persian Gulf } 577
Beijing’s handling of its Persian Gulf dilemma indicated that China ranks
maintaining stable, cooperative relations with the United States above devel-
oping a strategic partnership with Iran. But Beijing has also shown determi-
nation not to sacrifice Iran and not to stand too fully with the United States
against Iran. Within the parameters imposed by US minimal demands,
Beijing continued to forge gradually a partnership with Iran. In the face of
US pressure on Iran, the PRC assisted Iran’s industrialization, scientific and
technology, and military modernization efforts, while finding opportunities
to befriend Tehran in Security Council debates, thereby distinguishing itself
from the United States. China’s foreign policy journals typically concluded
that US hegemony was attempting to bludgeon the IRI into submission, but
that that effort would fail. US hegemony would meet the strong resistance of
the people of the region. The American people, plagued by the blunders aris-
ing out of US arrogance and ethnocentrism, would eventually grow weary of
their burdens in the Gulf. Chinese analysts did not put two and two together,
but if the reader will allow this author to do so, when the day arrives that the
Americans decide to leave the Gulf and “go home,” and the security affairs
of the Persian Gulf are finally left to the countries littoral to the Gulf to deal
with, China may have built a strategic partnership with the most powerful
and like-minded country in that region, Iran. In effect, Beijing has placed bets
on both sides of the wager, on Washington and on Tehran.