Former Chinese envoy to Canada reassigned to Iran

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China’s former ambassador to Canada has been reassigned to Iran, an apparent promotion that puts Cong Peiwu at the centre of deepening relations between authoritarian governments in Beijing, Tehran and Moscow.

Mr. Cong spent about 4½ years in Ottawa during the worst period in Canada-China relations since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He arrived the year after China jailed two Canadians in what one Canadian cabinet minister called a case of “hostage diplomacy,” and restricted shipments from Canada in goods from pork to canola seed. No Canadian foreign minister has visited China since 2018.

The state-controlled Tehran Times reported Sunday that Mr. Cong arrived in Iran’s capital last Friday as both countries seek to deepen ties. “China holds the position of being Iran’s primary trading ally. Both nations face varying degrees of unlawful sanctions imposed by the United States,” the newspaper noted.

Mr. Cong doesn’t enjoy much of a break. He left his post in Canada on April 9, according to a letter he sent to members of the Canadian diplomatic community upon his departure from Ottawa.

Former Canadian diplomat Guy Saint-Jacques said he sees Mr. Cong’s new job as a promotion because of the “closer and closer alignment” between Iran, China and Russia.

China has increasingly helped Russia and Iran weather sanctions imposed by the West and Tehran has become a big buyer of Chinese surveillance equipment.

As Reuters reported in 2023, based on its calculations, Beijing reaped savings of nearly US$10-billion in the first nine months of last year through record purchases of oil from Russia, Iran and Venezuela that are being sold at discounts because the producing countries are under Western sanctions.

“Oil revenue from China is propping up the Iranian and Russian economies and is undermining Western sanctions,” the Atlantic Council think tank said in a March, 2024, report. “Meanwhile, the use of Chinese currency and payment systems in this market restricts Western jurisdictions’ access to financial transactions data and weakens their sanctions enforcement efforts.”

Vina Nadjibulla, vice-president of research and strategy at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, said Mr. Cong will find the job in Iran very different from Canada. Relations between Beijing and Ottawa remain stalled but co-operation between China and Iran is booming.

“It would be a more significant portfolio given the depth and breadth of relations between China and Iran. And then a relationship that is only deepening and strengthening in every domain.”

Last year, China brokered a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia to restore diplomatic relations. This March, Iranian, Chinese and Russian warships held joint live-fire military drills in the Gulf of Oman, a critical trade waterway near the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

In a separate Tehran Times article Monday that welcomed Mr. Cong, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a former Iranian ambassador to China and head of the Iran-China Friendship Association, recalled as envoy to Beijing that he did not return home after the 1989 crackdown near Tiananmen Square. China has never provided a death toll for the 1989 violence. Rights groups and witnesses say it could run into the thousands.

Mr. Boroujerdi said he regarded “Iran and China as friends for all seasons and said that when the Tiananmen Square incident occurred and many countries’ ambassadors left their missions, he, as Iran’s ambassador in Beijing at the time, stayed in his mission and did not leave China in difficult circumstances,” the Tehran newspaper reported.

China has not yet announced a new ambassador for Canada.

China’s previous ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye, known for his undiplomatically blunt talk during his tenure in Canada, was promoted as China’s envoy to France after his posting in Canada ended in June, 2019.

Mr. Lu, regarded as one of China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats for his sharp-tongued comments, drew outrage in April, 2023, when he said former Soviet bloc countries don’t have “effective status in international law.” Beijing later distanced itself from these remarks.