Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and return to the June memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the United States when he met with visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Beijing on Wednesday.
“We urge all parties to take effective measures to reopen the Strait of Hormuz at an early date,” said Wang, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Wang urged Iran and the U.S. to “engage in substantive consultations on issues of mutual concern,” and advised both sides to “exercise restraint.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry insisted Wang’s remarks were consistent with China’s long-standing position on the Strait of Hormuz conflict — with a dash of additional urgency because Iran’s terrorist proxies in Yemen, the Houthis, are now attacking Saudi Arabia and threatening shipping in the Red Sea.
Araghchi claimed Iran still sees the MOU as valid — even though Iran has repeatedly violated it by launching terrorist attacks at civilian vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
“Iran is not interested in continuing the conflict, hopes to return to a diplomatic path toward a settlement and at the same time intends to firmly defend its rights and interests. The Iranian side believes that the memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran remains in force,” he said, according to Chinese state media.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Wednesday that the Strait of Hormuz has been reopened under American protection, for all intents and purposes, as oil flows reached 18 million barrels for the day, returning to “basically pre-conflict levels.”
The shipments are moving through the coastal waters of Oman, which has proven reluctant to join Iran’s proposed scheme for extorting ransoms from international shipping through the strait.
Wright on Tuesday addressed the Houthi attack on Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, which has temporarily halted Saudi efforts to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and move its oil through the Red Sea.
Wright told CNBC that the pipeline problem was a “brief and temporary interruption” that “will be measured in days.” Saudi Arabia has been hesitant to release official projections for repairs of the pipeline, but some independent analysts have said it could take up to six weeks.
According to Wright, the Saudis are coping with the problem by sending more supertankers through the Strait of Hormuz along the Omani coast. CNBC noted that the Iranians have attacked at least two ships in the strait since Saturday, so terrorism remains a problem, but Tehran no longer seems capable of stopping oil shipments entirely.
Iran is running out of cards to play, and Araghchi did not get the new deal he was looking for at the BRICS summit in New Delhi, India over the weekend — possibly because Iran has been wantonly attacking several of the other BRICS members with missiles and drones. The joint statement produced by the summit did not include the denunciation of American and Israeli strikes on Iran that Araghchi wanted.
Iran might also have crossed a line when its Houthi proxies allegedly attacked the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia with a drone on Tuesday. Condemnation from across the region was swift and unequivocal, including a blistering statement from the 57-member Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
Iran had been counting on the Houthis to damage Saudi oil infrastructure and shut down the Red Sea oil route, increasing global oil prices and putting economic pressure on the United States. The gamble seemed to pay off over the weekend as Saudi and Yemeni government forces melted away from the Houthi offensive to capture Yemen’s coastline and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
The best Araghchi could get out of Wang on Wednesday was a promise to “strengthen dialogue and cooperation with Iran, and safeguard Iran’s legitimate rights and interests” — a murky bit of diplomatic language that leaves the question of what Beijing sees as Iran’s “legitimate rights and interests” very open.
Wang’s simultaneous demand for safe and open transit of the Strait of Hormuz suggests that China does not see Iran’s scheme for running a protection racket in the strait as one of those legitimate interests.
Araghchi’s response was far less belligerent than Iran’s previous rhetoric, although it was also less belligerent than Iran’s current actions.
“We want the return of peace to the region and friendly and peaceful relations with our neighbors, and in this regard, we have started dialogue with the countries of the region,” Araghchi claimed in a statement posted to Telegram just two days after the other countries of the region canceled a summit with Iran because of the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia.