China is buying influence in the Middle East
And persecuting Muslims at home
How long can they keep it up?
This is China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
The Middle East.
The place everyone wants to be.
Despite, you know, history.
Now there’s a new player operating in the
Middle East—China.
The Chinese Comunist Party sees the Middle
East
as a strategic place to challenge Western
democracies.
But the Party might be biting off more than
it can chew.
I sat down with Nasser Weddady,
an expert on Middle East relations,
to find out more.
Thanks for joining me again.
Oh, thanks for having me.
So you know, the West has had such a fun time
in the Middle East.
Is China joining the party?
I think that's the understatement
of the last two centuries right there, Chris.
Yeah.
And I think that the Chinese government
is trying to get a foothold in the Middle
East,
but it's almost too cute because-
Cute?
Yes.
Because their thinking is that they can...
Their way in is to keep a good relationship
with the rulers
who none of them mostly is democratically
elected
and their representative city of their people
is highly questionable.
And with total disregard to public opinion.
And they think that they can,
I mean that's what we're seeing unfold,
they're signing trade deals with countries
like Saudi Arabia,
the UAE, Egypt now they're trying to get a
foothold in Iraq.
Places they don't always get along with each
other.
Yeah.
Places that are not the most stable in the
world
and definitely not the most democratic.
And their thinking is that we can sign deals
without having to get involved in any of the
confrontations.
And unfortunately the confrontations in the
Middle East have
a habit of being armed, not a peaceful confrontations.
And in theories, it sounds to me like
a nice sort of textbook and classroom strategy,
but that's exactly what every world power
started
with thinking that we're going to do thing
here and thing there
without getting too sucked up in the Middle
East.
Starting with United States,
arguably first involvement in the Middle East
notable one
was during the Suez crisis where President
Eisenhower was like,
"No, America is not going to caution whatever
you Britain,
French are cooking up."
And sort of invading the Suez Canal.
And then only two years later the U.S.
had its own small mini invasion to Lebanon
in 1958 that no one remembers.
And that was basically...
I'll fast forward all the way,
you see that like sort of the Middle East
has a habit of sucking people in.
So is it like a rite of passage for a rising
world power
to get involved in some Middle Eastern quagmire?
I mean again the Middle East has things
that the rest of the world wants and needs.
There's oil, obviously an energy which is
capital for the Chinese
and the Chinese economy.
But also there's the geo strategic location,
which is whoever kind of dominates in the
Middle East,
gets with the package access to things like
the Suez Canal,
which is a vital artery of world commerce,
like sending,
doing trade with Europe.
Around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa
is not a practical proposition.
What will take you through three months to
get to China via shipping lane
can get to China via the Swiss canal in three
weeks.
So it's a strategic position.
And not to mention that the Middle East
is increasingly becoming a market of its own
with huge purchase power,
particularly in the Gulf region.
So the Middle East is not just...
It is a lot of headaches,
but also there are some benefits.
So the Chinese, they talk themselves
into whatever exercises strategy they have.
But sooner or later, if you buy parts of the
Middle East,
you're going to own it.
So you think the Chinese Communist Party
sees control of the Middle East as a stepping
stone
in its rise to power and challenging the United
States
as a world superpower?
Yes, but the variation here is that the Chinese
Communist Party
seems to be talking itself into the rather
interesting idea
of that we can own the energy of the Middle
East
or be the major stakeholders,
but let the others, meaning the United States,
Europeans,
the Russians deal with the mess and that's
one of the gamble
they seem to be making.
I would say it's a little bit, it's too cute.
How is it working out for them now or?
I think that for the time being it's kind
of working for them
because they are securing increasing shares
of oil from Saudi Arabia,
from the UAE, major producers.
They have also been securing natural gas deals
with Qatar
and obviously their more traditional clients
and ally,
which is Iran, which is under huge like sort
of a big American sanctions,
an embargo and that embargo complicated life
for the Chinese
because they depend heavily on oil and they
need that stream of oil
to keep coming, to keep flooring.
And again, this is one of the aspects of the
Middle East.
You cannot...
It's a rather wishful thinking
that you can have secure stakes
and be a player without owning some of the
problems,
inherent problems of the region.
And the Chinese find themselves stuck in that
situation
because the confrontation with Iran is not
only a U.S. problem,
it's also the Europeans.
Even though that the Europeans seem at times
to be
far less aggressive about it.
But they fundamentally agree on the same principle,
which is Iran should not be allowed to be
in nuclear power.
And until sort of that conflict is resolved,
the Chinese will have to secure sources of
energy beyond Iran.
Why are relationships with China desirable
for Middle Eastern countries?
Oh, I think that's the biggest sales point
that Chinese have.
Which is you get deals with us that involved
no accountability whatsoever,
you're not going to have human rights groups
breathing down your neck
and you're certainly not going to be hearing
any complaints
about your internal politics from us meaning
Beijing.
And we don't care really what you do with
your political opposition
or how you treat your population or your public,
we couldn't care less.
What you get with us is great money,
great deals with no accountability.
And you know what?
Sometimes we might even throw our veto power
and the security council for you.
Which they did several times in Syria for
example.
Even though Syria right now is a big pile
of ashes.
There's not money to be made as it is,
but there could be and China has been shot
by the Syrian regime
and even the Russians trying to talk them
into taking on
some of the reconstruction work that needs
to be done there.
Well, so what happens when the Chinese Communist
Party
persecutes Muslims inside China,
like they'd been accused of ethnic cleansing
of the mostly Muslim uighur ethnic minority.
How do these Middle Eastern countries respond
to that?
Now that is probably one of the biggest glaring
hypocrisies of today's world.
Because on the one hand you have Muslim majority
countries governments
who time after time either choose to abstain
or not vote at all
or shoot down any international resolutions
that are targeting China.
Further mistreatment of the Uighurs and the
Muslim minority
in what they call Xinjiang is Turkistan.
And the public opinion...
Initially public opinions across the Muslim
world weren't quite aware
of the scale of what's going on,
but now awareness to starting to pick up about
this.
And outrage is building up, anger is building
up and-
In the public?
In the public, in public opinion.
Sooner or later it's going to become a problem
for Muslim majority governments.
Muslim majority country governments
because the stuff is indefensible and it's
quite glaring.
As a matter of fact,
there are two cases that come to mind about
sort of the conundrum that comes from this.
The first one is Pakistan.
Pakistan is obviously is second,
I believe the second most populous Muslim
nation on earth.
And Pakistan has been a strategic ally of
China's for the past 40,
some 50 years.
Because they see China as a balancing power
in their ever lasting confrontation with India.
And China has been investing billions in Pakistan,
providing weaponry.
And so the relationship between Pakistan and
China is very deep.
And recently there was a resolution in the
UN over the weaker persecution.
Pakistan voted against it.
And this is particularly sort of baffling
to the rest of us in the Muslim world
because in Pakistan people went out in the
streets
protesting the famous or infamous Danish cartoons
and Mohammed cartoons.
Mum on the Uighurs not much.
Why is there the silence?
I think that it's a combination of the Chinese
obviously
have made it known that they expect our allies
with friends
not to get involved in the story,
but I think also internally in Pakistan,
the Pakistan government would rather not
just become a public opinion issue.
Because currently Pakistan is cash strapped,
they have massive economic problems
and they're constantly like months away
from defaulting on their foreign loans.
So they need mass cash injections.
And I think that the Chinese made it clear
that and the Pakistan's government itself
internalized
the fact of life that if they talk about this
issue
that there will harm their relationships with
China,
which is right now their only source of cash.
And sort of this is schizophrenic and the
hypocrisy is just sickening.
Because Pakistan, I mean Pakistan was founded
originally.
Who is the idea behind Pakistan?
This is going to be the country that provides
a home for Muslims away
from persecution or so it was built initially.
That's the [inaudible] debtor of Pakistan.
So is it possible that these relationships
with China
could potentially become a destabilizing factor
in all of these countries
if the public opinion starts to sway against
China
and then their governments are sort of caught
in the middle?
I think that, that is the likelihood of that
is only increasing with time as there's more
is known about
what is going on in China and the way the
Muslims are being persecuted,
the more that's going to become a factor.
And that's the second case that I was going
to point out too,
which is Turkey.
Turkey historically has a relationship, and
again,
let's remember like what is Xinjiang original
name.
It's East Turkestan.
East Turkestan.
Turk.
And Turkey, historically even before the Urdu
were on government,
before the Islamists take over of Turkey,
even under nationalist secular Turkish governments,
there was always this ideology that looked
to
all of these Turkic speaking peoples that
stretch
all the way to China as some sort of brothers
or cousins.
And there's a cultural influence and there's
a sense of a common belonging
and that is one of the reasons that pushed
the Turkish government at one point to be
vocal
about what is going on and what has been done
to the Uighurs in China.
And they took a lot of refugees and they keep
on settling refugees.
But at some point, even Turkey had to watch.
To watch how it's talking about the issue
publicly
because China expressed sort of displeasure
with it
and so that Erdogan had to do a u-turn and
sort of tone down his language.
And again, what is at stake is billions and
billions of dollars in trade
and commerce with China.
And that's what is terrifying about this issue.
This is where the Uyghurs issue in Turkey
became very sensitive
because it's not only one of religion,
there [inaudible] were Muslims and Muslims
but also there's an ethnic dimension because
there are Turkic.
So it became a public opinion issue in Turkey
and it's a soft point, a weakness point for
Erdogan,
if he doesn't look tough enough on China,
which he had to back down from.
And that is likely to happen in most Muslim
countries
as Uighur advocacy steps up and it is stepping
up.
There was a famous incident of a German of
Turkish descent
of football soccer player Mr. Mesut Ozil tweeting
about the crisis...
Like sort of the mistreatment and the persecution
of Uyghurs.
That generated a massive backlash against
China
and the Chinese government actually responded
to Ozil's tweet,
which by the way it was inconvenient both
for the Turkish government
and for many Muslim majority governments.
It was really embarrassing for them
because it's shown a light on the topic
that they didn't want to talk about.
And they wanted to skirt.
So what is the public opinion of these Chinese
relationships
outside of even the uighurs?
I think that the public opinion
and the Muslim majority countries in the past,
I would say starting sometime in the last
decade,
used to view China as this far away kind of
friend who didn't meddle,
sort of didn't in meddle in an internal affairs
of countries
and people were interested in China.
Yeah.
Rather superficial things,
things some people might call soft power,
like Chinese culture wanting to challenge
say Beijing.
And I remember a time where actually the Chinese
government itself
was pushing an angle showing that China had
Muslims
and that was a sort of rapprochement point,
a meeting point.
It was a sales point to public opinions around
the Muslim world.
Of course that changed because those Chinese
Muslims
that were shown were actually the uighurs
that changed.
Yeah.
And the second thing is that historically
China
was part of the non-aligned block,
which was sort of a block of 50-some countries.
That was founded in the 60s and the idea
was like these are third world countries
that are arising and that didn't want to be
caught up
in the cold war confrontation between the
Western Bloc
and the Soviet Bloc.
And that's how the Chinese influence
started seeping in Muslim majority countries,
in the Middle East, in North Africa, even
in West Africa.
And that was punctuated with,
like aids that came generally in the form
of construction,
lack of infrastructure, ports, stadiums,
roads and occasionally offering scholarships
to people
to go to study in China.
But all of this was pretty mild and torn down.
And there were some occasions also that evolved
arm sales,
like fighter jets to Egypt, Algeria missile
systems.
But that started happening only in the 80s.
And then the big change is China itself changed,
became this like American totalized imperialist
power.
The Chinese started aggressively push again
for a foothold for markets,
for market shares, for sales.
And that happened in North Africa.
Algeria comes to mind particularly started
happening
in places looking for natural resources
like Mauritania with the fisheries deal
that we spoke about in the podcast.
And obviously in places like Pakistan,
which are neighboring, really within reach
of China's
and the other relationships is very deep.
It's state to state, military to military,
and it's one of strategic Alliance.
Are there military investments going on?
I know you mentioned some issues in Pakistan.
I mean there's obviously the military base
that the Chinese leased in Djibouti, Islam
majority country.
Strategic location on Indian Ocean and the
Red Sea.
And obviously they're stepping up military
to military cooperation
beyond Pakistan in places like Egypt
where they're selling them fighter jets, missile
systems,
Mauritanians so...
They sold that also military equipment.
They've had deals like that also in West Africa.
And so the Chinese are like sort of,
they're trying to widen the menu of things,
of goodies
you can get by becoming friends with the Chinese
government.
So how does the West view this?
I think that the Western world is of two minds
about all of this.
Because the Western world as we're going through
this new era of division,
of lack of clarity, of purpose when it comes
to Chinese influencer,
there doesn't seem to be a unified front in
the Western world
meaning the United States and its Western
European allies.
And each one it's basically, each one on to
their own.
Like in places in the Middle East and in Africa,
there isn't a joint strategy between let's
say the majors,
traditional stakeholders, United States, France,
Britain.
They're not necessarily coordinating efforts
let's say in places like Africa or the Middle
East
to roll back Chinese influence.
Because the Chinese have been very smart in
approaching these relationships
and exploiting the weaknesses of the Western
world and using them.
And one of the major weaknesses,
this might be shocking to some viewers.
As much as I have...
We could record an entire episode with me
criticizing the Western world
for its uneven and the times immoral behavior
when it's dealing with these countries.
That criticism stands.
However, the difference between China and
the Western world
is that in the Western world,
these are democracies that have representatives,
parliaments and have a free press.
You don't like the policy of the United States.
Let's say vis-à-vis Iraq, or vis-à-vis Iran,
the American press is flooding literally with
OPEDs and interviews
and opinions from the people who are feeling
the brunt of U.S. Policies.
You're not going to get that with the Chinese.
There are parliaments, there are norms, you
can sue dictators,
you can go after them and there are legions
and legions of cases where this happened.
With the Chinese, you're not going to get
that.
So ultimately to summarize here is just that
the major weakness the Western world has,
which ironically also what is the greatness
of the Western world,
is that there is a measure of accountability
that you can push through Western institutions
against dictatorships and rulers,
whereas the Chinese are immune from that
because the Chinese become friends with those
strong men,
rulers and dictators
and they're not going to hold them accountable
for anything.
And this is a question that I get asked time
and again,
it's like, "America as an imperialist,
Britain as an imperialist power,
so what changed when another imperialist power
comes on along the play?"
I was like, "Be careful for what you wish
for.
There are major differences here that are
worthy of noting."
Well, so what would you say to people in these
Muslim countries
who do make that argument that what is the
difference
between the United States and China?
I will simply point out two things like the
Magnitsky Act,
landmark led-American legislation that allows
people
to be sanctioned for human rights abuses.
There's no such thing with the Chinese.
And I want to say to people is that in America
you have friends and allies and civil society,
in the press and even amongst elected officials,
there is no such thing with China and,
and that is also holds true of the Western
democracies in Europe.
My warning is this, if you think that China
is going to be your friend
and then just finally is going to liberate
you from Western imperialism,
you are wrong.
China is actually a lot worse than the Western
countries ever could be.
And the difference is a fundamental one,
is that China is not trying to export freedom
and democracy.
China is trying to export its own authoritarian
model and you,
the people, we, the people who live under
dictatorships
are going to be the biggest losers from that.
Wow.
Well, thank you for joining me.
That was very interesting.
Thank you for having me.
