Iranian FM's PRC visit, commentary on PRC-Iran from Fan Hongda, Zhai Jun meets with Omani MOFA official, Saudi Education Minister signs 2 MoUs with China
China and Iran to mark "golden year" in bilateral relations - Tehran Times.
This overview of Araghchi’s visit to Beijing tells us who he met with and the usual statements. Noteworthy that President Pezeshkian will visit China this year for the SCO summit. It’s also interesting, to me at least, that they’re using the ‘Golden Year’ as well - last year was the China-Egypt golden year, and I don’t think I’d seen the term used before. Other than lots of deals and MoUs, the China-Egypt golden year saw visits from Egypt’s president, PM and FM, so that could be what they’re taking about with Iran.
It’s also interesting that this article - and others I’ve read - point out Iran’s membership in BRICS and the SCO. I’ve written this here before, but I don’t think the importance of this should be discounted. Not that either organization is particularly significant in terms of outcomes, but they are important for China in supporting its image as a global power that is trying to develop an alternative framework of global governance. Getting other countries to buy in is important to Beijing, and that would be hard to achieve if it were to abandon Iran under pressure from Washington. In a lot of important ways Iran is more vulnerable than it was during Trump’s first term, making a deal important, but at the same time, its relationships with China and Russia - and other countries in the Middle East, for that matter - are more substantial than before, and I think this gives it more leverage.