The Sixth Broadyard Workshop (博雅工作坊) of the Institute of Area Studies, Peking University (PKUIAS), on the theme “Studies on Iran from International, Regional and National Perspectives”, was held on May 17, with discussions focusing on recent major issues related to Iran.

More than ten experts and academics from PKU, Tsinghua University, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies attended the workshop. Qian Chengdan, Director of the Institute of Area Studies, Peking University, hosted the conference.

Earlier this May, the US president, Donald Trump, announced that he would withdraw the US from the Iran nuclear deal. The move has impacted Iran’s domestic and foreign polices.

Regarding this issue, Lu Jin, a researcher from the Institute of West-Asian and African Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that Trump’s making the decision despite strong opposition from the international community was aimed at curbing Iran’s increasingly expanding influence in the Middle East region. Considering that Iran’s economy is stagnant, Trump’s action can only be seen as an attempt to pressure Iran to submit.

Some academics also held that the US did this in order to provoke disputes among Middle East countries, and this was an attempt to benefit by fomenting “controllable chaos.” They opined that the US-Iran relationship is unlikely to take a favorable turn during the Trump presidency, and that the state of the two countries and other related countries will definitely affect Iran’s domestic stability and the future course of the development for both the region and the world.

In terms of how Iran will respond to the US’ new action, Shi Guang from the School of Foreign Languages, Peking University, expressed his view that the failure of the nuclear deal is not acceptable for Iran. But since the Iranian government’s main task currently is to face up to the US economic blockade and recover its domestic economy, Teheran has only limited ways in which it can fight back.

The workshop participants also discussed the current hot domestic social issues in Iran, Iran’s diplomacy with its neighboring countries, changes in the situation in the Middle East, and the China-Iran relationship.