Beijing and Bazaars: Sino-Iranian Relations through Ethnographic Shadows
By Arang Keshavarzian
In an unassuming store deep in the heart of Tehran’s covered marketplace, or bazaar, I was chatting with an apprentice. Our conversation was focused on the growing role played by new kitchenware and glassware commercial hubs located outside the bazaar. The animated well-groomed man, who I assumed was in his early 20s, lacked experience, but was a willing interviewee. After a few minutes, however, he redirected our conversation away from my interest in the bazaar’s emerging wholesaling and retailing competitors to several bazaaris within the cavernous historic marketplace sourcing their wares from China. He referenced partners cost-sharing the shipment of containers directly from Chinese ports. As he listed the sorts of Chinese goods available in the nearby stores – appliances, flatware, wooden utensils, and more – I noticed that the owner of the store was becoming agitated. Hassan, as I will name him, was a wholesaler and retailer specializing in glassware for several decades and was someone who I had interviewed several times since I began my research on the Tehran bazaar. He was sitting at his desk, ostensibly finishing up some paperwork before we were going to fully catch up after not seeing each other for a couple of years. Finally he put his pen down and interjected that fads come and go and some people are always after a quick buck. However, he insisted that one has to know the tastes of customers and the quality of the items one is selling. Left unsaid was that he and his father before him had imported glassware from Europe, in particular France and the Czech Republic. And the implication was that these products were vastly superior to their Chinese manufactured counterparts. With the elder bazaari’s interjection, the conversation changed course and my field notes remained truncated.
China and Glassware Bazaar in the Hajeb-al-Dowleh Timche of the Tehran Bazaar: Photo taken by author
This fleeting exchange took place from May 2005, a moment that many Iranians and I understood as part of an interregnum. I conceived and completed my research on the Tehran bazaar from 1997 to 2005, an era when the domestic political scene was convulsed by energized social formations and deeply factionalized elite politics. It was unclear exactly how the overlapping crises that pitted supporters of the Leader of the regime, Ali Khamenei, and a reformist movement orbiting around Mohammad Khatami would unfold. Would Iran transition into a more competitive and representative polity, a democracy? Would Khamenei crush dissident voices and sideline students, laborers, investigative journalists, and activists demanding a better life? How would this all condition the US policy of containment? This all had implications for traders and commercial houses in Tehran and across Iran since everything from tariff policies and exchange rates to relations with the US and international financial institutions had the potential to shift depending on who made laws in the Islamic Republic and if the US would relent exercising its economic weapons.
Marginal in my interview notes and ethnographic observations was a more slow-burning, but equally uncertain, set of transformations. The post-Cold War triumphal moment of unipolar domination was being overwritten by the imperial excesses of the US-led Global War on Terror that swirled around Iran as it decimated Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. The US’ military might and budgetary commitments to the Pentagon and an Armada of private aerospace, logistics, and technology firms could not be overlooked even in the shops and warehouses in Tehran. But was this a sign of hegemonic consolidation or weakness? Was this the beginning of the global sweep of liberal democratic capitalism known as the End of History, or was this in fact the eclipse of the American Century? What did this portend for the security and financial structures of oil exporters? Were we witnessing the emergence of a new international era lead by Europe, BRICS, or Asia, rather than exclusively Washington?
These were not the questions that animated my research or my interviews. I spent several research stays struggling to decipher how the Tehran bazaar’s economic organization was translated into political power and was discovering the transfigurative role of the 1979 revolution, Iran-Iraq War, and urban planning in both how bazaaris related to one another and the broader political economy. My recollections and field notes contain much about reputations of brokers, personal debt, and urban regulations, but only mere fleeting references to East Asia. Yet, by revisiting them two decades later, what emerges is the sketch of a pre-history to the making of a new geoeconomy centered on Chinese interests, investments, and forms of connectivity to and from Iran. The rise of China has not necessarily displaced US-centered capitalism or dented the power of US sanctions policies, for instance, but it began to change the horizons of globalism for some Iranians in ways that can only be fully discerned and appreciated today.
A Metro and Many Memorandums
In the years that I was living in Iran and engaging in ethnographic research through meetings and interviewing importers, exporters, brokers, wholesalers, and retailers in or connected to the Tehran bazaar, neither my research questions nor my extensive discussions with bazaaris elicited thinking about trade or financial interactions with China. With hindsight it is tempting to read too much into the silences, instead when I plumb recollections and notes two images of China emerge: the Tehran metro and the previously mentioned image of “the container.” For decades suffocating traffic and long travel times hindered access to the Tehran bazaar. A subway system had long been imagined as a solution to address rapid population growth, urban sprawl, and automobile-centered lifestyles. By the late 1990s word had spread among bazaaris, but very few other Tehranis that I knew, that the state-owned Chinese International Trust Investment Corporation (CITIC) had signed a contract to complete Tehran’s languishing metro and suburban light rail project. With the unanimous approval of the bazaaris I met, the relatively affordable and reliable metro was gradually easing the ability of workers and shoppers to make their way to Tehran bazaar area. While doing little to address the challenges facing wholesalers and warehouse owners, in subsequent visits it was clear that popular metro had made the historic core of the city more accessible to the over 10 million people living in Tehran and its immediate suburbs. Second, there were also several occasions when references were made to people pooling resources and importing a container of goods directly from China. This was a means to bypass the gauntlets of intermediaries based either in Iranian ministries or trading houses in Dubai, Istanbul, or elsewhere. I never did follow up to see how exactly these investments worked or profits and risks were distributed. I suspect that my graduate student-self feared stretching the geography of commerce would have stretched the focus of my study.
These isolated containers were not what drove Chinese exports to Iran from $2.5 billion in 2004 to $14 billion in 2018. As US and European sanctions on Iran’s trade and financial expanded under both the right-wing populist Ahmadinejad (2005-213) and technocratic centrist Hassan Rouhani (2013-2021) it was Iran’s need and appetite for machinery, vehicles, and technology for manufacturing that oriented Iran’s imports towards “the global factory” of China. With sanctions on the banking, oil, and transport sectors discounted Iranian oil increasingly flowed East and ultimately since 2007 China become Iran’s leading trading partner. There has been an intuitional deepening of relations too: Iran joined China as a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2015 and became a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Sino-Iranian relations were upgraded in 2016 when the two governments signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The ceremonial signing took place in the same week that a Sino-Saudi partnership was struck and two years after one was penned by Egypt. The partnership was upgraded after much delay when in March 2021 China and Iran signed a 25-year cooperation agreement. Despite this broad roadmap lacking specific targets or concrete mechanism to hold either side accountable, in international media outlets the signing of these agreements were discussed as evidence of Iran and China developing an “alliance.”
For some in Iran, who had lauded “the Chinese Model” since the 1990s, the very public engagement between Tehran and Beijing was a welcome development and an example of Iran breaking western shackles that threatened their revolutionary project. But for other Iranian politicians and citizens at large the signing of one memorandum of understanding after another, the regular news of China extending lines of credit for infrastructural and energy projects, and the visible increase of Chinese consumer goods has raised concerns that there was an over-reliance on China, while it was ultimately unclear how dependable Beijing would be in supporting Iran through its many international challenges. For other Iranians, especially those active in social justice movements, it is China’s authoritarianism and techno-security exports that are ominous. The lack of transparency around these agreements has fed the churn of rumors and inaccurate reports touted by foreign based Persian-language outlets; a good example has been the speculation that has Iran transferred ownership of islands to China. However, one comparative study demonstrates that “in relative terms, [Iran is] no more dependent on China than the other major economies in the Middle East.” And in fact, “relative to the size of its economy, Iran appears to be lagging behind other Middle Eastern states as a trade partner and investment destination for China.” The Iranian government, in fact, can be accused of lagging behind GCC countries capitalizing on China’s economy.
Suitcase Trade and Sightseeing Tours
Prior to and below the surface of these high-level diplomatic proclamations and bilateral trade data, in the early 2000s there were more mundane and piecemeal initiatives, which re-drew the geography of Iran’s relations with East Asia. Narges Erami shows the forays of carpet producers to discern and cultivate the taste for Persian rugs in Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and elsewhere in East Asia involved a blend of producers, exporters, ambassadors, and members of the state-operated Iranian Carpet Company (Sherkat-e Farsh-e Iran) seeking to cultivate alternative markets for Persian carpets. Importers of consumer goods also pivoted East. Not unlike traders in other parts of the Middle East these initiatives and investments were mediated by intricate networks and well informed agents who were necessary to access wholesalers in China and navigate various custom regimes. I had glimpses of this in the regular references by shopkeepers to investments in “containers” from China.
The most concrete example, however, was not from a well resourced member of the bazaar or even an entrepreneurial retailer in one of Tehran’s many newer commercial arcades. It was a homemaker who had spent much of the 1990s making extra money for herself and her family by purchasing clothes and other items during vacations to places like Dubai, Canada, and the US and re-selling them from her home in north-central Tehran. These “shows” would be a means for middle class and upper middle-class Tehranis to purchase foreign fashion and brands that were not readily available in Iran at a time that many Iranians could not travel abroad easily because they faced visa restrictions and financial obstacles. Combining travel, and even pilgrimage, with shopping for resale was not uncommon for post-revolutionary Iranians of many different social classes and frequently was a means for women to gain economic independence. However, Maryam, as I will call her, explained that by the early 2000s most of the goods bought for resale were being made in China and this “suitcase trade” had to contend with the mark-up of prices in third countries and declining value of the rial. It was in 2004 when one of her friends, who owned a sports apparel store, suggested that Maryam travel to China to purchase clothing at what he claimed to be half or even a third the prices for the exact same items in Dubai or Turkey. Trusting this friend and intrigued by the possibility to both visit a country she had never seen and also to cover her costs and more, she made arrangements to get a visa for China. She took the risk of not buying the standard package tours offered by agencies in Tehran and instead booked her own airfare and hotel. With the help of a contacts, Maryam managed to get a visa to China from what she recalls as being a very courteous embassy employee who spoke passable Persian.
After her friend and travel partner had a change of heart, Maryam arrived in Beijing by herself for a ten-day stay with little more than a list of names of a few marketplaces amassed from friends in Tehran, the name of her hotel, and broken English. Besides having to contend with the difficulty of finding food that she liked (or was willing to) eat or figuring out how much to pay for taxis, Maryam continuously was unimpressed with the quality of the pillowcases, shoes, and clothes sold in the far-flung markets she visited. She remained empty handed and decided to contact an agency that specialized in organizing tours for Iranian visitors. She went to a bustling neighborhood with many Iranians and signed-up for a tour of the Great Wall of China. On this day trip she met an older husband and wife who were in Beijing to place orders for knock-off “Gap” branded clothing which would be sold in their son’s store in northern Tehran. It was on one of her last days that she visited a multi-story wholesaler’s complex and was able to secure women’s pant suits at an amazingly good price. Using hand gestures and a calculator, she purchased enough to fill her 30kg suitcases. Maryam managed to navigate both the customs officers in Beijing and Tehran’s airports. She made a handsome profit and sold every single item.
Despite discovering a small community of Iranians in Beijing and even a Chinese man who had worked on the Iranian railroad and spoke almost fluent in Persian who took her on a memorable guided tour of the Forbidden city, Maryam never did return to Beijing. Today some nineteen years after her trip, she left me an ambivalent WhatsApp message to say that things have changed so much since she went to China and she now hears of many Iranians, including a young man in her own apartment building, doing business directly in China. She prefaced this by saying that she hears many cynical comments about Sino-Iranian relations, including the common statement that the even though the Islamic republic was founded on calling the United States the Great Satan, it now courts an atheist China. As for the apprentice in the Tehran bazaar who enthusiastically talked to me about the potential of importing kitchen and flatware from China, I don’t know what happened to him. His ambitions may have grown along with the swelling of Iranian-Chinese trade, or they may have been drowned by contemporary currents. In 2013, in my last visit to Tehran, I went to Hassan’s store in the bazaar. He was not there that day, but his son greeted me and after a series of pleasantries, I enquired how business was going and how they were managing the latest round of sanctions. After a rather rote set of complaints about everyone and everything — from the ignorance of Iranian and US politicians to consumption patterns and the poor taste of young Iranian women — he pointed to the items on display and said that they have shifted away from most of their European imports. I noticed that half the display cases consisted wooden serving bowls and utensils. I asked where they came from and he responded, “China.”
China and Glassware Bazaar in the Hajeb-al-Dowleh Timche of the Tehran Bazaar: Photo taken by author