The Chinese 'never say no' - an Iranian perspective

Iran is the second largest supplier of oil to the People's Republic of China and within the first nine months of 2009, it became largest market for the investment of Chinese companies in construction and projects. Fariborz Laghaie likes to trade with the Chinese. The successful businessman from Teheran imports a number of goods, among them, electronics.

He has been flying frequently to China for the past three years. He says China's influence on the Iranian market is growing by the day. "Of course sanctions against Iran play a big role. But those who do business with the Chinese know the saying: the Chinese never say no to anyone. Chinese companies have won many jobs in various sectors in Iran in the past years."

The Iranian market is flooded with 'cheap products' from China - from textiles and toys to DVD players and the latest models of mobile phones. Experts in Iran have cautioned against the Chinese competition, saying it jeopardizes Iran's industry and job market.

But it has been in vain, says Laghaie: "We still don't have strict laws governing the volume and quality of imports from China. The majority of Iranians can not afford to buy expensive, high-quality products. On the other hand, the Chinese authorities do not have the capacities to control everything that is produced in and exported from such a large country. So everyone just does what they want."

Oil deals with China are kept secret

The Iranian economy is mostly centralized and is almost completely state-controlled. In the Iranian economy, corruption is a wide-spread problem. In its latest corruption index, Transparency International has ranked Iran 168 of 180 countries. This year, China became Iran's number one trade partner.

China exports mainly weapons to the isolated country in return for oil and gas. The oppositional journalist Mehdi Mohseni is surprised. "Nobody knows about oil deals with China in Iran. Outside of Iran is where I heard about it and I was really shocked. China is only known to us in our country because of its cheap products."

Aside from cheap products, people in Iran hardly know anything about China, although both cultures have been linked by the Silk Road for centuries. Iranians don't hear about things like the Tiananmen Massacre nor about the brutal crackdown of Chinese security forces on demonstrators in Tibet and Xinjiang.

Iranian lawyer, human rights defender and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi, criticizes the country's blindness. "The Chinese government exploits the rights of its people to a great extent - just like the Iranian government. Whenever a Moslem is killed in the Middle East, the Iranian government makes a huge deal out of it. But when thousands of Muslim Uighurs are killed in China, they say nothing. And they make sure the press says nothing."

Shirin Ebadi has observed how the Iranian people are starting to see through the government despite censored media coverage. She says now, when the state marches on the streets shouting "down with America and down with Israel", the people shout instead, "down with Russia" and "down with China."

Author: Nourian, Shabnam / sb
Editor: Thomas Baerthlein