Is There an Alliance between Iran and China?

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

61% : Iran forms a key component of China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.
59% : For China, Iran is a powerful, stable, nonthreatening state.
54% : Tehran applied again last year.
54% : On Farsi social media, meanwhile, Mohammed Hassan Dehghani, an official in Iran's IRGC-associated "Resistance Economy" structure, tweeted that SCO "full membership" would bring "significant economic, security and political benefits" for Iran.
54% : On March 27, 2020, Tehran and Beijing announced a 25-year strategic agreement for $400 billion of Chinese investment in Iran.
54% : The emergent closer relations between Tehran and Beijing have already produced one significant outcome.
53% : Iran forms a route to the Arabian Sea and international waterways for the landlocked, central Asian countries that are SCO members.
52% : Iran's defiant and successful resistance to the US policy of "maximum pressure" during the period of the Trump administration was made partially possible because of the presence of China as a kind of "insurance policy" on which Tehran could rely.
51% : Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (right) and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi bump elbows at the signing ceremony of a 25-year cooperation agreement, in Tehran, in March 2021.
51% : Even now, a timeline has yet to be announced for Tehran's joining the organization.
50% : Rather, the sanctions were a principal concern preventing earlier accession to full membership in the SCO for Tehran.
47% : Should the imminent Iranian accession to the SCO therefore be seen as a significant step in the direction of an emergent anti-Western strategic bloc, of which Iran will be a member?
45% : Nor is the SCO aligned with Iran in its defiance of the international system regarding its nuclear program.
43% : Kayhan, a publication associated with hardline positions, wrote that '"from now on Iran can implement its policy of multilateralism, progressively abandon a vision based solely on the West and mitigate Western sanctions."
41% : And it points toward closer alignment between Beijing and Tehran, on the basis of hard, shared long-term interests.
39% : Major investments by Russia, China and India in Iran have doubtless been deterred by the threat of US sanctions.
39% : Tehran is close to becoming a "threshold" nuclear power (or already is one, according to some).
34% : In the latter regard, however, the Shia nature of that ideology means that Iran does not constitute a potential disruptive source of appeal to China's own, overwhelmingly Sunni, restive Muslim populations.
33% : China's continued purchase of Iranian illegally exported crude oil, in particular, enabled Tehran to maintain oil revenues despite supposedly "crippling" sanctions.

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