Iran is the biggest supplier of OIL to China.
China, Iran forge closer ties
By John Hill
The "common consensus between China and Iran in regional and international affairs is increasing", Chinese President Hu Jintao noted during a visit to Beijing by the Iranian Vice-President Mohammed Setarifar.
At the time of the visit in April 2004, Hu drew attention to the huge potential in economic co-operation between the two states, and this has continued apace. On 18 March 2005, Fereydoun Verdi-Nejad, the Iranian ambassador to China, noted that there were more than 100 Chinese projects under construction in Iran and that the value of economic transactions between the two countries hit US$7 billion in 2004. He said that "despite some countries' pressures on both Iran and China, they could not affect bilateral ties" - a message clearly directed at Washington.
China is a significant buyer of Iranian crude oil and Iran benefits from Chinese involvement in a number of ambitious infrastructure projects. In February, the Iranian new agency Mehrnews reported that Chinese officials had proposed setting up a consortium with Iran and Afghanistan to study how to connect Iran's Sarakhs railroad to China via Afghanistan. Beijing is also involved in Tehran's subway project, along with other road and transport initiatives.
The question is whether this burgeoning relationship between Beijing and Tehran in any way constitutes a major new alliance directed against US interests.
Beijing is open about its dislike of US hegemony in international affairs and has stated that its overarching foreign policy objective is to undermine this hegemony through pursuit of a multi-polar world order. Washington's worry is that the policy may include supporting 'rogue' states such as Iran by engaging in the proliferation of sensitive military technologies relating to WMD or ballistic missiles to rogue states.
http://www.janes.com/security/intern...0418_1_n.shtml