Chinese defense minister General Wei Fenghe is set to visit Iran on Wednesday to meet with senior Iranian officials, including his counterpart Mohammad Reza Gharaei Ashtiani.

In a sign of developing military cooperation, Iran, Russia, and China held naval drills in January in the north Indian Ocean. These were the third such trilateral naval exercises since the first was held in late 2019 and announced as the formation of Marine Security Belt. The 2022 Marine Security Belt exercise covered 17,000 square kilometers and included the navies both of Iran’s Army and its Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

China’s military role in the region is less than its expanding commercial presence. Chinese trade with Saudi Arabia in 2020 topped $65 billion, and with the United Arab Emirates was around $60 billion.

While Iran-China trade fell back to around $15 billion in 2021 after reaching around $50 billion in 2014, the head of the Tehran-Beijing chamber of commerce, Majid-Reza Hariri, has suggested that the lifting of United States’ sanctions could see it reach $60 billion. Hariri said establishing Iranian representative offices in China was a work in progress.