In Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 2nd, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, six world powers and Iran reached the basic framework nuclear deal that limits Iran’s usage of enriched uranium for 10 years. Iran and other six world powers seem to resolve details by June 30 and produce final deal by end of this year.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that the framework nuclear deal reached by Iran and world powers will bring positive energy to Sino-U.S. relations.
Although the United States and China have not been quite agreeable to each other over economic and security issues, now they are jointly putting an effort on helping resolve North Korea’s nuclear issue. North Korea’s nuclear weapons issue has remained at the top of the bilateral agenda to Sino-U.S. relations.
Unlike Iran, since North Korea has different disposition over nuclear weapon issues, lots of other countries have different prospects for resolving North Korea’s Nuclear weapon problem.
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20150404000065
Presumably it cooperated with others on Iranian sanctions. That begs the following question: Why is China participating in the Iranian non-proliferation process but very much less eager with North Korea? With normalization, will China benefit from trade from Iran, while pressure on NKorea has downsides — possible chaos in NK, political challenges to actually enforce sanctions — and no upsides?
On the surface, the North Korea and Iran nuclear issues seem similar. They both want or already control nuclear power, with larger countries like the U.S. or China pushing against this power. However, I see the difference in possible economic output. With Iran being the largest and one of the most influential countries in the middle east, they have far more potential than a starved and resource-less NK.
Iran also has an elected government, albeit subservient to religious authorities. The domestic political dynamics are very different.