The steady rise in U.S. strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over trade and the South China Sea already has so many dimensions that it is sometimes easy to ignore shifts in the PRC’s behavior in other areas. On July 6, 2020, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif announced that Iran was negotiating an agreement with the PRC – with which it long has had trade and strategic links – which would now make the two countries the equivalent of strategic partners. This expanded U.S.-PRC competition to new parts of the world. Perhaps more importantly, the move is a substantive and significant response to India’s success in militarily outmaneuvering the PRC in Kashmir during June 2020. The PRC-Iran accord means the end of Indian use of the Iranian port of Chah Bahar and the construction of a rail link from that port city northward to link with […]