The United States is acting under new legislation, signed into law by President Obama on New Year’s Eve, that would penalize foreign firms that deal with Iran’s central bank, which handles that country’s oil revenue.
Chinese officials, however, have been reluctant to link economic ties with Iran to the nuclear issue, saying publicly that the two matters should be kept separate.
After meetings in Beijing with China’s top leaders, Geithner received pledges of continued cooperation on broader global economic issues, but no immediate answer on the request to reduce Iranian oil purchases.
On Thursday, Geithner received a more positive response in Tokyo, where Japan’s finance minister said that country will reduce its oil imports from Iran from the current 10 percent.
A senior U.S. official said that Geithner’s visit represented just the start of what is expected to be a difficult mission to persuade Asian countries to reduce their energy reliance on Iran.
“We are in the early stages of a broad global diplomatic effort to take advantage of this new legislation to significantly intensify the pressure on Iran,” said the U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the ground rules for briefing reporters. “We are telling them what’s important to us, and they are listening.”
The official added, “We have a reasonable shot at getting a number of countries to wean themselves off Iranian oil.”
Geithner’s visit comes as China announced that Premier Wen Jiabao will travel to the Middle East this weekend, on a trip that will take him to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Some analysts said the timing of Wen’s trip — to attend a conference in Abu Dhabi and give a speech on China’s energy policy — could signal that Chinese leaders may be looking for alternative oil suppliers from the region.
“China is quite ambivalent and hesitant at the moment,” said Cui Shoujun, director of the International Energy Research Center at Renmin University in Beijing. He said Wen’s visit to the other oil-producing countries would itself put pressure on Iran, by showing that China was starting to diversify its oil suppliers.
Cui and other analysts said Chinese leaders are keen to keep good economic relations with the United States and want to make sure China adheres to the international consensus regarding Iran. Wen’s trip, they said, would be important for gauging regional opinion.
“China has been dissatisfied with Iran for a long time because of the nuclear issue,” Cui said. “Compared to China’s relations with the U.S., China-Iran relations are a lot less important. If China has to break one of the two, it will definitely be Iran.”
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