An internal account says Iran's regime has effectively borrowed China's "Tiananmen model" in its recent crackdown on anti-government protests. The idea is to crush demonstrators with force while pairing limited cultural and economic opening and diplomatic flexibility to prolong the system's life.
IranWire, a specialist outlet on Iran, said on the 18th (local time) that, citing testimony from a former Iranian official, Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), oversaw the bloody suppression of the mass anti-government protests in January this year. Larijani, a key figure who coordinates the security and intelligence agencies of Iran's regime, is said to have served as the de facto control tower during the crackdown.
According to IranWire, Larijani assessed his own blueprint as "similar to the governing strategy pursued by Deng Xiaoping in China in the 1980s." A former Iranian official said, "The massacre of demonstrators this time copied the 1989 Tiananmen incident as it was," adding, "The aim was to imprint the message that challenging the system ends in death." At the time, China's military killed thousands of demonstrators by force and then maintained the Communist Party's one-party system while pairing economic opening with diplomatic normalization.
Iran's regime likewise plans to pursue a hard-line crackdown and limited opening at the same time. The calculation is to absorb discontent by allowing some cultural and economic freedoms mainly for groups not critical of the regime, while also improving diplomatic cooperation with neighboring countries. This resembles a Chinese-style governing model that permits daily life atop politics of fear that thoroughly block criticism of the system.
The strategy is already becoming reality on the ground. In the capital, Tehran, deaths from security forces' gunfire continue, and checkpoints have been installed en masse in major cities such as Tabriz. At the same time, authorities are seizing the property of entertainers and asset owners who publicly supported the protests, tightening fear and control.
Larijani is singled out as a key figure in the episode because of his personal background and power base. He hails from the most influential clerical family in Iran. His father, Mirza Hashem Amoli, was a grand ayatollah, the highest-ranking Shiite cleric. His eldest brother, Mohammad Javad Larijani, is a mid-career diplomat who served as deputy foreign minister. His younger brother, Sadegh Larijani, served as head of the judiciary. Sadegh is also mentioned as a candidate to succeed the current supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
The SNSC, where Larijani serves as secretary, is Iran's top decision-making body on security and foreign policy. The president serves as chair, but the secretary handles practical policy coordination and execution. In a structure that includes the parliament speaker, the head of the judiciary, the armed forces chief of staff, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leadership, Larijani is positioned to adjust each institution's interests and move state affairs overall.
Iran believes it can widen the rift between the United States and Israel by leveraging shifts in Western public opinion after the Gaza crisis and is said to be investing in external messaging. It also appears to be expanding bargaining leverage by maintaining high-level diplomatic contacts with Russia and others under U.S. sanctions. Outwardly, the calculation is to showcase flexibility to secure international space, while domestically pairing that with hard-line measures to uproot the momentum of the protests.
Larijani's influence, coordinating power through the SNSC, first surfaced in the reshaping of the diplomatic lineup. Iran has recently strengthened a pragmatic line aimed at easing international pressure by focusing on nuclear talks and regional diplomacy. IranWire reported that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is earning Khamenei's confidence by producing results on the diplomatic stage, including nuclear negotiations. At the same time, former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and former President Hassan Rouhani, who Western media had speculated were detained, are also said to be communicating with Larijani and discussing diplomatic issues.
Iran believes it can widen the rift between the United States and Israel by leveraging shifts in Western public opinion after the Gaza crisis, and it is also investing in external messaging. It is also attempting to expand bargaining leverage by continuing high-level diplomatic contacts with Russia and others under U.S. sanctions. Externally, the calculation is to showcase flexibility to secure a place in the international community, while domestically maintaining a hard-line stance to "completely uproot the momentum of the protests."
Experts, however, said Iran's "Tiananmen model" is unlikely to operate as smoothly as China's. Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute (MEI), wrote in a 2023 Foreign Policy op-ed, "Iran's leadership aspires to China's model of combining repression and economic growth, but unlike China, Iran's economic base is fragile," adding, "Repression without economic performance only accelerates loss of public support." Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), likewise pointed to the limits of politics of fear, saying Iran's ideologically rigid system would find it difficult to withstand economic opening.