China slams 'illegal' US sanctions on Iran

**Unni Desai** (0:00)
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hi, I'm Uncle Desai, and at 1400 GMT, on Tuesday the 25th of August, these are our main stories. The US warns of serious consequences if countries do business with Iran. But China, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, says it's opposed to what it called illegal unilateral sanctions. A report says flooding in East Africa, caused by a supercharged El Nino, could result in the displacement of 3 million people. And there's mounting concern over Haiti's ability to stage elections this year, after another mass killing by armed gangs.
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After six months of conflict with Iran and no peace agreement in sight, the US is attempting to increase economic pressure on Tehran. It's introducing tough new economic sanctions, it hopes will prevent Iran trading with the rest of the world. Iran has responded in defiance and says its trading partners would not bend to US pressure. Here's our chief international correspondent, Lise Doucet.

**Lise Doucet** (1:30)
Iran is arguably one of the world's leading experts on how to circumvent and subvert sanctions as lived under one sanction regime or another, both American as well as international sanctions, for more than five decades. During President Trump's first term, when he pulled out of the 2015 landmark Iran nuclear deal, he went to what he called maximum pressure on Iran, which didn't work. Now, during what has been a six-month long on-off war, the economic pressure has been described as economic fury. And now Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary, has announced this new plan, which he calls economic outcast. And it is largely targeting those countries who do deals with Iran, what are called secondary sanctions.
Is the United States going to go after China, which at least before the naval blockade was buying up to as much as 90% of Iran's oil at a discounted price? Will it aggressively go after Chinese banks, after the small oil refineries known as teapot refineries? Even when Scott Besson was asked about why he hadn't announced specific measures and hadn't even mentioned countries, he said, I don't want to blow up the financial system. And finally, countries who are very close allies of the United States, including Pakistan and Turkey, depend on their relationships with Iran and are highly unlikely to do anything to harm that.

**Unni Desai** (3:04)
Well, China, which as we heard there, is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, has said it opposes what it called illegal unilateral sanctions. Lin Jian is the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

**Lin Jian** (3:17)
Economic warfare and extreme pressure will not help solve the problems, but will only further intensify conflict, disrupt the global economic financial order, and harm the legitimate rights and interests of other countries.
The top priority now is to cool down the situation and get back to the track of dialogue and negotiation as soon as possible. China will take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard its own rights and interests.

**Unni Desai** (3:43)
Our Beijing correspondent, Stephen MacDonald, told me more about what we're hearing from Beijing.

**Stephen MacDonald** (3:48)
The view from the Chinese government is, look, our commercial dealings with Iran are completely legal, as opposed to the actions of the Trump administration, which they would say are completely illegal, because according to the Chinese government, you know, these sanctions on individuals, on certain vessels, certain companies, including Chinese firms, you can't just sanction those people for having commercial relations with another country, China would say. This is because the Chinese government says that, you know, you've got to put this through the UN Security Council, which the US government has not done. So according to China, this is completely legal in terms of the actions of the Trump administration, and it's threatened unspecified countermeasures in response.

**Unni Desai** (4:40)
So Stephen, does this put China on a collision course with the US? Or are there any other ways around this?

**Stephen MacDonald** (4:45)
To some extent, it does. I mean, Scott Besson, the US Treasury Secretary, was asked that if some point, the Chinese banks could even be dragged into this. And he's like, no one is above our sanctions. So imagine Chinese banks being sanctioned by the US.
I don't see how it's anything other than a collision course. The problem, of course, for the Trump administration, what it's learnt from the tariff war with China is you can't push Beijing around the way you can push other countries around. And so they're going to be coming up against it. And this is just months before Xi Jinping and Donald Trump are supposed to be meeting in the US.