There’s been a lot of discussion over the past week about the implications of the China-Iran comprehensive strategic partnership agreement the two sides signed during Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent visit to Tehran. Scholars and analysts in the U.S. and Europe have been struggling to understand the deal’s geopolitical significance and, apparently, there’s similar confusion in China.

Shanghai International Studies University Professor Fan Hongda, one of China’s foremost Middle East scholars, gently chided his academic colleagues for framing the agreement “too narrowly” within the context of contemporary Mideast politics, rather than as part of a larger Chinese diplomatic strategy.