Sensibly joining hands to confront a common danger

THE historic agreement reached by the world's major powers and Iran on that country's nuclear programme marked the Obama administration's biggest diplomatic achievement in six years. China was one of the P5+1 countries negotiating with Iran.

What was its role? China's position on Iran has always been quite different from that of the United States. While Washington pushed for sanctions to punish Iran and to bring it to the negotiating table, China and Russia were generally opposed to both economic sanctions and to maintaining an arms embargo.

Beijing itself had in times past been accused by Washington of proliferation activities, and Chinese state-owned companies were repeatedly threatened with sanctions, including for activities involving Iran. While the US maintained a trade embargo on Iran and imposed financial sanctions on countries that purchased Iranian crude oil, China continued to do business with Iran. In mid-2013, the US announ…