MEK: As far as China is concerned, there are no such concerns about the ethics of a relationship with the mullahs

Former European lawmaker, Struan Stevenson, has published a new article for UPI on Iran giving his thoughts about the agreement between the Iranian regime and China, as well as touching on other current issues in Iran such as the status of Covid-19 and the rapidly nose-diving economy.

The text below summarizes key points from Stevenson’s article.

On the Iranian Chinese agreement, which involves a 400 billion dollar bailout from China intended to save the Iranian economy from implosion, Stevenson notes the hypocrisy involved. That an Islamic state based on fundamental principles should negotiate a deal with a communist-led nation that has by all accounts enslaved a million Uighur Muslims is nothing short of breathtaking.

As far as China is concerned, there are no such concerns about the ethics of a relationship with the mullahs. After all, they are gaining 25 years’ worth of cheap oil, plus a market for their engineering and telecommunications products. If Huawei is losing friends in the West, it will now be welcome in Iran. The Chinese will certainly not be taking too much notice of the pressure from the U.S. to maintain sanctions against Iran, embroiled as they are in an escalating trade war with the U.S.

The Covid-19 pandemic has been badly mishandled by the Iranian regime and this has impacted the already weakening economy. Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, has ordered millions of Iranians out of lockdown and back to school and work to ‘save the economy.’ The regime deliberately refused to provide help to Iranians who could not afford to survive while at home. Poorer Iranians were forced to choose between starving if they stayed at home away from the virus or getting sick if they went back to work. The result is that there has been a tsunami of deaths due to the disease.

According to The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK Iran) on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, the COVID-19 death toll across Iran had passed 78,800, and half the population is estimated to have been infected.

The regime in Iran has failed to control the pandemic and failed to save the economy. They have spent the last 41 years since the Iranian Revolution stealing from the Iranian people and squandering the loot on proxy wars and terrorist groups in Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. More money has also been spent on a nuclear weapons program.

The 400 billion dollars intended to prop up the Iranian economy with bridges, ports, railways, roads, and other infrastructure. No doubt the Chinese will give a helping hand to get the regime’s nuclear ambitions back on the road. 5G will be rolled out across Iran courtesy of the Chinese who will also cooperate with the regime on military development.

As the Iranian regime has foundered due to poor economic management and squandering its finances on propping up terrorist groups like Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas, it will get a new2 lease of life with the money the Chinese have promised in the new agreement. The U.S. State Department has been casting a wary eye on developments between Iran and China and issued a statement saying “The United States will continue to impose costs on Chinese companies that aid Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.”

The leaked agreement includes a reference to China and Iran being “two ancient Asian cultures, two partners in the sectors of trade, economy, politics, culture, and security with a similar outlook and many mutual bilateral and multilateral interests will consider one another strategic partners.” The prospect of Russia’s Putin to the mix of Iran and China should “set the alarm bells ringing in the West,” according to Stevenson.

China is taking advantage of a weakened America, bedeviled by the effects of the pandemic and the worst economic recession since 1933. China is not worried about any attempt by the U.S. to exert pressure as it is reveling in America’s current weakness.

Although it is highly likely that the agreement will be approved by the Iranian Parliament, it doesn’t mean that it will go down well with the Iranian people. It would be prudent for Xi Jinping and the Chinese leadership to take note of the reaction of the Iranian people to the agreement. They already consider it will jut prop up a deeply unpopular government. The Chinese may very well encounter a backlash if it goes ahead against the wishes of the people of Iran, especially if they overthrow the rotting dictatorship before too long anyway.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran’s (NCRI), had said: 

“For Khomeini, Khamenei, and Rouhani, neither water, nor the land, nor the culture, nor the lives, nor the wealth of the Iranian people have any value. Only one thing matters: Preserving the rule of the mullahs, which Khomeini described as the ‘absolute imperative,’ and for which one can abrogate Islamic edicts, and first and foremost give away the land and water of Iran and its people and massacre its valiant children in the prisons. Indeed, what could an invader do that the mullahs have not done to Iran and the Iranian people? The mullahs are among the worst in Iran’s history.”