Israel-Gaza war: China sends veteran ex-diplomat to Iran on ‘friendship’ mission
- Beijing has had limited official exchanges with Tehran since the start of the conflict in early October
- During the Iran-China Friendship Association meeting, Iranian delegation head endorses China’s ‘fair position’ on international and regional affairs
Outwardly, the purpose of the trip, which ended on Tuesday, was to improve people-to-people exchanges, according to state news agency Xinhua.
The report did not mention the conflict, in which Iran, a backer of the militant group Hamas, has an indirect yet influential role to play.
China helped to broker a resumption in relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia earlier this year but it has had few official exchanges with Tehran since the war started, despite Beijing being widely seen as having leverage with Iran.
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Yang, chairman of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, was in Tehran for the annual Iran-China Friendship Association meeting and met former deputy foreign minister Alaeddin Boroujerdi.
According to a Chinese statement about the meeting, Boroujerdi said Iranian people “deeply admired” China’s “consistent fair and just position in international and regional affairs”, with Chinese President Xi Jinping providing solutions for “a better world, peace, common development and mutual understanding among civilisations”.
Iran is believed to be a key military and financial backer of Hamas but denied any involvement in the group’s sudden assault on Israel on October 7, which ignited the war in Gaza.
Tehran has also backed other anti-Israel organisations in the region, such as Hezbollah, a militant group and a political party in Lebanon. It is also a key ally of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad government.
Aside from Yang’s trip, the most recent diplomatic meeting between China and Iran was in early November when Wang Di, China’s head diplomat for West Asian and North African affairs, visited Tehran.
In talks with Ali Bagheri, Iranian deputy foreign minister for political affairs, Wang Di repeated Beijing’s call for an “urgent need for a ceasefire” to stem the “large-scale civilian casualties” in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
And in late October, Chinese Premier Li Qiang met Iranian First Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber on the margins of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meetings in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
The semi-official Tehran-based Fars News Agency, said the two men discussed the Gaza conflict, with Li expressing Beijing’s interest in “more coordination with Tehran” and urging Islamic countries to “work together to de-escalate tensions”.
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Beijing signalled it would elevate its cooperation with Tehran in August, when Xi met Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on the sidelines of the Brics summit in Johannesburg, pledging to work with Iran on multilateral alliances.
China has been a crucial trading partner and oil buyer for Iran, which has been sanctioned by the United States and European powers, and has been Iran’s biggest trading partner for 10 consecutive years from 2013, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce.
Iran also became the ninth member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a security and economic grouping of Russia, China, India, Pakistan and four ex-Soviet central Asian states – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
During the meeting between Li and Mokhber, Li said Beijing wanted to boost coordination with Tehran through multilateral platforms such as the United Nations, the SCO and Brics.
