The Dragon and the Crescent: Two Civilizations, One Alliance

En 2021, China e Irán firmaron un acuerdo de cooperación de veinticinco años que incluye inversión en infraestructuras, tecnología, defensa, cultura.

In 2021, China and Iran signed a twenty-five year cooperation agreement covering infrastructure investment, technology, defense, culture.

Es decir, los chinos ven a Irán como algo más que un surtidor de gasolina.

Meaning the Chinese see Iran as something more than a gas station.

Twenty-five years.

That's a generational bet.

That's a commitment that says we think this relationship outlasts whatever's happening in Washington right now.

Y forma parte de algo más grande, que es la Iniciativa de la Franja y la Ruta, lo que los medios occidentales llaman la Nueva Ruta de la Seda.

And it's part of something larger, which is the Belt and Road Initiative, what Western media calls the New Silk Road.

China lleva años invirtiendo en puertos, carreteras, ferrocarriles en Asia, África, Europa.

China has been investing in ports, roads, railways across Asia, Africa, Europe for years.

Es una estrategia cultural y económica al mismo tiempo.

It's a cultural and economic strategy at the same time.

The branding is interesting, isn't it.

'Belt and Road' is deliberately evoking the ancient Silk Road.

It's saying: we have always been the center of global trade.

We're just returning to what we were.

Exacto.

Exactly.

Y eso es importante culturalmente, porque tanto China como Irán tienen lo que los académicos llaman una 'civilización-estado'.

And that's culturally important, because both China and Iran have what scholars call a 'civilization-state.' They're not nations that were invented in the nineteenth century.

No son naciones que se inventaron en el siglo diecinueve.

They are civilizations that have been organizing the world their own way for millennia.

Son civilizaciones que llevan milenios organizando el mundo a su manera.

I spent time in Tehran back in the early 2000s, before things got really complicated with press access.

And one thing that struck me was how Iranians talk about their pre-Islamic history.

Cyrus the Great, the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian Gardens.

There's this enormous pride that has nothing to do with the Islamic Republic.

Es que el concepto de 'Irán' como civilización tiene más de dos mil quinientos años.

The concept of 'Iran' as a civilization is over two thousand five hundred years old.

El gobierno actual tiene cuarenta y tantos.

The current government is forty-something years old.

Los iraníes son perfectamente capaces de distinguir entre el Estado y la civilización, aunque los medios occidentales a veces no lo hagan.

Iranians are perfectly capable of distinguishing between the state and the civilization, even if Western media sometimes doesn't.

That's a real blind spot in the coverage, I think.

When we talk about Iran we almost always mean the government, the nuclear program, the proxies.

We rarely talk about Persian literature, or the fact that Iran has one of the highest rates of poetry readership in the world.

Hafez, Rumi, Omar Jayam.

Hafez, Rumi, Omar Khayyam.

Estos nombres son tan importantes en la cultura iraní como Shakespeare en la cultura anglosajona.

These names are as important in Iranian culture as Shakespeare in Anglo-Saxon culture.

Y son conocidos en China.

And they are known in China.

Hay traducciones persas al chino que tienen siglos de antigüedad.

There are Persian-to-Chinese translations that are centuries old.

Rumi is one of those cases where the West discovered him and then kind of claimed him.

There's the whole Rumi meme industry in English, most of which he probably would have found baffling.

Sí, a veces da la impresión de que Occidente descubre algo milenario y piensa que lo está inventando.

Yes, sometimes it seems like the West discovers something millennia-old and thinks it's inventing it.

Pero volviendo a la reunión de esta semana, lo interesante es que Wang Yi y Araghchi se reunieron en Pekín, no en un tercer país neutral.

But going back to this week's meeting, what's interesting is that Wang Yi and Araghchi met in Beijing, not in a neutral third country.

Eso dice algo.

That says something.

It says China is willing to be publicly visible as a mediator in this conflict, which is a significant diplomatic posture.

Beijing doesn't usually want that kind of exposure.

Y es que China tiene mucho que ganar si el estrecho de Ormuz se reabre de manera estable.

And China has a lot to gain if the Strait of Hormuz reopens in a stable way.

El ochenta por ciento del petróleo que pasa por Ormuz va a Asia.

Eighty percent of the oil that passes through Hormuz goes to Asia.

Es decir, esto afecta a China más que a Europa o Estados Unidos.

Meaning this affects China more than it affects Europe or the United States.

Which reframes the whole conversation, doesn't it.

The Strait of Hormuz has been covered largely through the lens of U.S.

military operations and European shipping.

But the country with the most direct economic stake in that waterway is China.

Exactamente.

Exactly.

Y aquí hay una pregunta cultural que me parece muy interesante: ¿por qué los medios occidentales cubren el estrecho de Ormuz como si fuera principalmente un problema occidental?

And here's a cultural question I find very interesting: why do Western media cover the Strait of Hormuz as if it were primarily a Western problem?

Porque no lo es.

Because it isn't.

Es un problema global, pero sobre todo asiático.

It's a global problem, but above all an Asian one.

Because the institutional memory of global order is still structured around Western frameworks.

The UN Security Council, the IMF, the whole postwar architecture.

Everything is narrated from that center of gravity.

Which is increasingly out of step with where the actual weight of the world economy sits.

Eso es lo que tanto China como Irán llevan años diciendo, aunque por razones distintas.

That's what both China and Iran have been saying for years, though for different reasons.

China lo dice desde una posición de fuerza creciente.

China says it from a position of growing strength.

Irán lo dice desde una posición de aislamiento.

Iran says it from a position of isolation.

Pero los dos comparten esa visión de que el orden mundial necesita ser reconfigurado.

But both share that view that the world order needs to be reconfigured.

And yet they're also very different from each other in ways that don't always get enough attention.

China has this pragmatic, transactional approach to foreign policy that's almost allergic to ideology.

Iran's foreign policy is deeply ideological.

Those two things can coexist when interests align, but they create tension underneath.

Sí, y culturalmente también son muy distintos.

Yes, and culturally they are also very different.

El confucianismo chino valora el orden, la jerarquía, el consenso social.

Chinese Confucianism values order, hierarchy, social consensus.

La cultura iraní tiene una tradición mucho más de debate, de poesía combativa, de cuestionamiento del poder.

Iranian culture has a much stronger tradition of debate, combative poetry, questioning power.

Son civilizaciones que han llegado al mismo punto por caminos muy diferentes.

They are civilizations that have arrived at the same point by very different paths.

The poetry point is real.

One of the interviews I did in Tehran that I still think about, the person I was talking to pulled out a Hafez poem to explain his view of the government.

Not as a metaphor.

As the actual argument.

En Irán, la poesía funciona como un lenguaje político cifrado.

In Iran, poetry functions as a coded political language.

Durante siglos fue la única manera de criticar al poder sin que te cortaran la cabeza.

For centuries it was the only way to criticize power without getting your head cut off.

Esa tradición sobrevive.

That tradition survives.

Los iraníes todavía leen poesía clásica para hablar de política contemporánea.

Iranians still read classical poetry to talk about contemporary politics.

So when Wang Yi sits down with Araghchi, there are these entirely different intellectual frameworks in the room, and somehow they find a common language, which is the language of interests.

That's the translation layer.

Y eso es fascinante desde el punto de vista cultural.

And that's fascinating from a cultural point of view.

Dos civilizaciones que se conocen desde hace dos mil años, que han intercambiado todo tipo de cosas, y que sin embargo necesitan la misma palanca que cualquier alianza moderna: el interés mutuo.

Two civilizations that have known each other for two thousand years, that have exchanged all kinds of things, and that nevertheless need the same lever as any modern alliance: mutual interest.

What does this mean going forward, do you think?

If the ceasefire holds, if Iran and the U.S.

eventually reach some kind of deal, does China's role as a kind of quiet guarantor of Iranian stability actually grow?

Creo que sí, pero con matices.

I think so, but with nuances.

Si hay un acuerdo real entre Irán y Estados Unidos, Irán necesitará menos a China como protector político.

If there's a real deal between Iran and the United States, Iran will need China less as a political protector.

Pero la relación económica y cultural seguirá.

But the economic and cultural relationship will continue.

Veinticinco años de cooperación no desaparecen porque firmes un memorando con Washington.

Twenty-five years of cooperation don't disappear because you sign a memorandum with Washington.

And that might actually be the most underreported story of this whole conflict.

Not the bombs, not the carrier groups, not the gold prices.

The slow, grinding extension of Chinese cultural and economic reach into the Middle East.

Que, por cierto, no es nueva.

Which, by the way, isn't new.

Los chinos llevan décadas construyendo presencia en la región.

The Chinese have been building presence in the region for decades.

Lo que ha cambiado es que ahora son lo suficientemente fuertes como para hacerlo de manera pública, sin esconderse detrás de la retórica de la no intervención.

What has changed is that they are now strong enough to do it publicly, without hiding behind the rhetoric of non-intervention.

Can I ask you something that's been sitting in the back of my head?

You've spent time in both China and in different parts of the Arab and Iranian world.

Do ordinary people in those places actually feel any sense of shared culture, or is that a diplomat's construction?

Honestamente, creo que es mixto.

Honestly, I think it's mixed.

Hay admiración mutua entre intelectuales y artistas.

There is mutual admiration among intellectuals and artists.

Pero la gente corriente en Teherán no piensa en Pekín como un hermano cultural.

But ordinary people in Tehran don't think of Beijing as a cultural sibling.

Piensa en China como el país que fabrica las cosas baratas que compran en el bazar.

They think of China as the country that makes the cheap things they buy at the bazaar.

La afinidad profunda es más un proyecto de las élites.

The deep affinity is more of an elite project.

Which is how a lot of geopolitical relationships actually work.

The framework gets built at the top, and the population lives inside it without necessarily endorsing the narrative.

Oye, quería preguntarte algo sobre lo que dijiste antes.

Hey, I wanted to ask you about something.

Usaste la expresión 'lo que el mundo tiene en común', ¿verdad?

I noticed that Araghchi said something in his statements this week that I find interesting from a linguistic angle.

Bueno, me fijé en que Araghchi dijo algo en sus declaraciones esta semana que me parece muy interesante desde el punto de vista lingüístico.

He spoke of 'shared perspectives.' In Spanish we'd say 'perspectivas compartidas,' of course, but we could also say 'visiones en común.'

Habló de 'perspectivas compartidas'.

En español diríamos 'perspectivas compartidas', claro, pero también podríamos decir 'visiones en común'.

Wait, 'en común'?

I've been using 'en común' for a while but I'm never totally sure when to use it versus just saying 'compartido.'

Es una distinción sutil pero real.

'Compartido' is an adjective that modifies the noun directly: a shared vision, a shared goal.

'Compartido' es un adjetivo que modifica directamente al sustantivo: una visión compartida, un objetivo compartido.

'En común' is an expression indicating that something belongs to or applies to several people at the same time: we have something in common, we act together.

'En común' es una expresión que indica que algo pertenece o se aplica a varios al mismo tiempo: tenemos algo en común, actuamos en común.

The nuance is that 'en común' feels more like coincidence, and 'compartido' more like active agreement.

El matiz es que 'en común' tiene un sentido más de coincidencia, y 'compartido' más de acuerdo activo.

So China and Iran have interests 'en común' but whether they truly have a 'visión compartida' is much less clear.

I feel like I could actually use that distinction to sound like I know what I'm talking about at one of those Madrid family dinners.

Eso sería un progreso notable, Fletcher.

That would be notable progress, Fletcher.

Aunque todavía recuerdo la vez que intentaste decir que estabas 'avergonzado' y le dijiste a mi madre que estabas embarazado.

Although I still remember the time you tried to say you were embarrassed and told my mother you were pregnant.

Así que no vendas la piel del oso.

So don't count your chickens.