GHS208-05 Fall 2019 China and the Islamic Middle East

In light of our end of the semester discussion about how our studies are relevant today, I’ve been thinking about sharing a podcast I really enjoy. Tell Them, I Am is hosted by Misha Euceph and is about “the small moments that define who we are and who we are not.” The stories are about all sorts of little life events. They’re really fun and entertaining, and come from people that tell them really well. The common thread in the podcast is that all of the voices are Muslim—but the interesting thing for me is that this is rarely the focal point of any of the stories. It is usually referenced, as the storytellers tend to share details of their upbringing and home life, so it’s interesting to hear about Islam as a piece of someone’s personal life instead of in an academic focus.

Reza Aslan is one of the guests in a very cool episode (No. 5), and one of my favorites is Najma Sharif’s story about growing up and dating as a teenager (No. 3). But they’re all really enjoyable to listen to, and I think they make a fun, fresh application of how our studies fit into the world today.

According to a new report released by Brown University the US has spent over $6.4 trillion through fiscal year 2020 in budgetary costs related to and caused by the post 9/11 wars. This breaks down into an estimated $5.4 trillion in appropriations in current dollars and an additional minimum of $1 trillion for total US future veteran care obligations. The post 9/11 wars may have started in the Middle East but it has expanded into a global war on terror.

Since 2001 the wars have changed from originally defending the US against future terrorist threats from al Qaeda, to wars and smaller conflicts which have now involved over 80 different countries. This also includes the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. A takeaway that I never quite thought of is that even if the US withdrew completely from major war zones immediately and halted its Global War on Terror operations, the total taxpayer burden would continue to increase due to the cost of ongoing veterans care and interest accrued on loans taken out to pay for the wars.

The total is $2 trillion more than the 2019 fiscal year federal government budget, which itself has been ballooning to unsustainable spending. In March of this year the Pentagon estimated that the wars in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq have cost each taxpayer roughly $7,623 through FY 2018, although this number is slightly misleading. In the past wars were paid for by tax increases or by selling war bonds, however the post 9/11 wars have been “funded” by deficit spending. Increasing the Federal budget deficit and the national debt to fund wars which have dragged on far too long.

The Global War on Terror will be a conflict that the US will continue to pay for for decades to come. Leading to an increasing economic catastrophe as the national debt continues to rise via credit card, student loan, and military debt.

Sources:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/20/us-spent-6point4-trillion-on-middle-east-wars-since-2001-study.html

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2019/US%20Budgetary%20Costs%20of%20Wars%20November%202019.pdf?utm_source=Daily%20on%20Defense%20(2019%20TEMPLATE)_11/15/2019&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WEX_Daily%20on%20Defense&rid=84648

 

The China Railway Construction Corp (CRCC) recently completed a coal carrying railroad line from inner Mongolia to the Jiangxi Province. For scale this railroad is about the same length as NYC to Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL and cost about $28 billion. The CRCC and Chinese state media lauded the project as an exemplar of “safe production”, claiming that there were no deaths or injuries during the four year span it took to build the railroad. However this was far from the truth.

Inside sources tipped off accidents to local reporters and eventually a state run China Railway unit admitted to the death of 3 workers which occurred in 2017. Apparently a panel the workers were standing on collapsed into the Ganjiang River and all 3 of the workers did not survive. The firm was blacklisted by the Chinese government for a year, subjugating the company to more inspections, limits on bidding for public projects, and restrictions on issuing bonds and shares.

The incident was fed into China’s corporate social-credit system, a system which punishes every Chinese firm over acts as harmless as tweets, maps, or T shirts which the government deems harmful to the State. The social credit system is extremely powerful, leading firms to drastic measures to stay off the backs of the Chinese State. The social-credit system can benefit firms which exhibit good performance; leading to lower taxes, fewer inspections, more favorable loan terms, and more opportunities to public bids. The Chinese government claims that the social-credit system is in place to scare companies into abiding by the law, however it’s more likely a scare tactic to force companies into obeying the party line.

Foreign companies in China worry about what China will do with their social-credit systems. Will they weaponize it? Trapping foreign companies in the crossfire of the US-China trader war, or could potentially be targeted so that domestic Chinese corporations could gain unfair advantages. In some cases there’s a lack of information on how blacklists will be implemented, leading to uncertainty for many businesses. This arbitration can lead to a lot of leeway for local interpretation which could discriminate against foreign companies. However the greatest risk foreign corporations face is losing access to the worlds biggest market from a political misstep.

Some foreign corporations are investing into staying ahead of the system. Examples include Trivium China charging $2,500 an hour explaining social credit to clients and up to $50,000 for an audit. Sinolytics is another consulting company which is currently working with European and US multinationals in automobiles, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, manufacturing, and logistics. At this point the social-credit system is expanding, and there is a large amount of uncertainty about just how far the Chinese State will take it.

 

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-08/the-chinese-blacklist-that-companies-pay-2-500-an-hour-to-avoid

Iraq is in search for a new prime minister after Adel Abdul Mahdi’s resignation became official on December 1. Although it seems that nobody wants to fill his vacant position. Moqtada al-Sadr, the leader of Iraq’s largest parliamentary bloc, stated that he does not want to nominate a candidate. The establishment figures which were mused as possible successors since Mahdi stepped down have been quickly dismissed by the public.

Finding a strong prime minister after the US led removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003 has proven to be very difficult. After elections in 2018 it took six months and endorsement from both the US and Iran to select Mahdi, and experts say this time it might even be harder to find a candidate. “I don’t see anyone in his right mind would want to be prime minister in Iraq for the next few months,” stated Abbas Kadhim, director of the Atlantic Council’s Iraq Initiative.

Any new prime minister will have to deal with the anti government protest movement, which is calling for an entirely new vision of Iraq. A political advisor to Sadr explained that their party Sairoon is not choosing a candidate because they “believe that the political parties are still insisting on choosing the prime minister themselves, which is in contrast to what people are calling for”. While the US and Tehran have battled for influence in Iraq for years it seems that Iran now has a greater say over who will come to power in Iraq. It could be a long time before we see anybody step forward that the public will actually endorse.

 

Sources:

https://www.npr.org/2019/12/01/783960949/iraqi-parliament-accepts-pm-adel-abdul-mahdi-resignation-but-protesters-demand-m

https://www.ft.com/content/384e36ca-1694-11ea-8d73-6303645ac406

 

China’s ministry of finance announced on December 6 that they were waiving tariffs on US soybeans and pork. The announcement was made in an effort to help tariff negotiations improve, giving a little bit of leverage to President Trump. Beijing had originally promised to lift the tariffs in September, although that lift did not come into fruition until now.

The two sides are negotiating the terms of the “Phase 1” agreement announced by President Trump in October. Phase 1 was an effort by Trump to postpone previously announced tariffs, attempting to get China to come to the table. The US and China have been in an ongoing trade war for months now, continually announcing, enforcing, and redacting billions of dollars worth of tariffs on each others export of goods. The trade war has disrupted trade globally and threatened to damage the economies of both the US and China.

A US tariff hike on an additional $160 billion worth of Chinese goods is set to take place starting December 15. If the tariffs are enforced then nearly every good imported from China would be subjected to the tariffs, this includes cell phones, laptops, monitors, and many more items. At this very moment the US seems to be fully dug in, with President Trump announcing this week that he might be willing to wait until the 2020 elections to settle the trade war. We’ll have to wait and see if the Dec 15 tariffs are imposed and what the potential economic/political effects will be.

Source:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-tariff-on-pork-soybeans-waived-as-two-countries-negotiate-settlement/

https://www.npr.org/2019/10/11/769469085/trump-announces-phase-one-of-trade-deal-with-china

 

There is a common theory that almost every country gets its name from one of four things: a feature of the local landscape, the native people, an important person/leader, or a directional description of the country. While this holds true more or less on a global scale, it’s a different story in the Middle East.

One of the main reasons the Middle East does not follow this conventional theory is the lack of historical written records. Names have been passed through multiple languages through thousands of years through the Greeks, Romans, Berbers, and others. As a result, almost 1/3 of the countries in this area have no certain explanation for their names. Of those countries where the etymology, or origin, is certain, the naming of sed countries comes mainly from natural and manmade geographic features. Albeit there are more than 10 other countries in the area which the origin is either unclear or disputed.

Algeria, Kuwait, and Tunisia all take their names from capital cities. Other countries take their names from physical features of the landscape, with water often being that distinguishing factor. Bahrain means “two seas” in Arabic, referencing the waters to the east and west of the island. Iraq means “shore” or “bank” in Arabic, probably in reference to the Euphrates and Tigris rivers which have supported life in the country for thousands of years. Jordan is also named after a river, although the origin of the River Jordan’s name is itself uncertain, possibly meaning “river of Dan” after a son of the Biblical Patriarch Jacob.

Another large category of names is derived from people, sometimes combining with the landscape as well. Mauritania is named after the countries largest ethnic group, the Mauri. Sudan means “land of the blacks”. Israel is named after the biblical figure Jacob (as mentioned above) who was the grandson of the patriarch Abraham. Saudia Arabia is a combination of the name of the Al-Saud family dynasty and the Arabian lands they ruled. The name Turkey comes from the ruling people there, called the Ti-Kiu or Tu-Kue by Chinese sources in the 6th century describing the people of the once central Asian empire.

It’s very interesting to see how each country is unique in how its name came about. The name of each country is one of the first ways we distinguished our native lands from each other. Assigning a special name to our homelands which was inspired by local land, people, or legend.

 

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2019/12/06/where-middle-east-countries-get-their-names/#1e11d6c649e2

China has now emerged as the biggest challenge to ever face NATO. In the news this past week (although under reported) NATO, for the first time defined China as a strategic challenge. NATO allies have been trying to figure out whether Beijing is more of an economic opportunity than fundamental problem.

A statement to come out of the recent London Declaration read “We recognize that China’s growing influence and international policies present both opportunities and challenges that we need to address together as an alliance”. This hardly depicts the power and influence that modern day China has in the global hierarchy of nations. China has the worlds largest population, spends the second most money on their military, and will soon surpass the US as the worlds largest economy.

Other issues that China has put forth into the world include repression over one million Uighur Muslims, the Hong Kong protests, and Huawei’s 5G telecom dominance in the marketplace. China and Russia are strengthening their relationship, exhibited by a new 1,800 mile long gas pipeline connecting the two countries to Huawei expanding their relations with Russian Universities and research institutes. With the growing amount of power China exudes we must ask ourselves, how will they use that power?

It’s very unlikely that China would want to promote freedom of speech, dissent, and discourse, let lone rule of law or democratic elections or decision making. These are all ideas which NATO supports, which clearly diverge from what China believes in moving forward. NATO alliance leaders should be developing strategic plans moving forward to deal with the growing issues China exhibits, not mock name call each other. This is a very serious issue which the entire alliance of NATO has to come together to solve.

 

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/07/managing-china-is-natos-biggest-challenge-yet.html

As I talked about in a previous article, Iran has been moving short range ballistic missiles into Iraq. This has created heightened sense of urgency within the US to mobilize more troops into the Middle East. Some estimates are up to 14,000 additional troops, albeit a more realistic number would be somewhere in the 4,000 to 7,000 range. The troops would mostly be implemented in an effort to beef up US air defense in the Middle East, enabling a better evaluation of the weapon movements across borders.

The Iranian missiles could pose a threat to US forces stationed in Iraq, as well as potential attacks on Saudia Arabia. This all comes at a time where numerous countries have been concerned about Iran’s nuclear development. Germany, France, and the U.K. have announced their concern over Iran in a letter to the UN, alleging that Tehran has developed missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Tensions continue to grow between Iran and the West as President Trump’s economic sanctions continue to hurt their economy. In late November the US Navy intercepted a ship in the Arabian Sea carrying “the most sophisticated weapons seized by the US Navy to date”. The missile components are suspected to be of Iranian origin and their destination target was apparently for Yemen.

 

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/05/politics/pentagon-troop-boost-mideast-iran/index.html

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) just recently deemed China free of allegations made by the Philippines over China’s “atrocious actions” in the South China Sea. The court ruled that the ICC itself had no jurisdiction over the matter since Beijing is not a party to the Rome Statute (treaty that forms the international tribune). The ICC also stated that the crimes occurred within the Philippines exclusive economic zone/continental shelf, which is not considered part of their territory. The exact quote reads as “Criminal conduct which takes place in the EEZ and continental shelf is thus in principle outside of the territory of a coastal state and as such, is not encompassed under the Rome Statute.”

Accusations the Philippines made against President Xi Jinping and China included: excluding Philippine nationals from utilizing resources in the South China Sea, blocking filipino fisherman’s access to certain traditional fishing grounds, and most important of all the illegal reclamation of and artificial island building which has been ongoing in the Spratly Islands. Island building is detrimental to the local environment, shifting the natural fish species away and shaping new unnatural landscapes which are not conducive to preserving fish populating.

China has failed to recognize previous court rulings over their artificial island building. With Chinese nationals deeming the courts decision not applicable due to their view of the area as their own. I believe that harmful environmental practices like island building should be outlawed, and that countries such as China should be punished. Other nations need to come to the support of the Philippines, and not just the US. China will never listen to neighboring countries like the Philippines unless they have a multitude of backers which fight for international environmental preservation.

 

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1213980/south-china-sea-philippines-south-china-sea-international-criminal-court

US military officials claim that Iran is secretly moving missiles across the border into Iraq in an attempt to intimated neighboring countries in the Middle East and help strengthen their power base. The report came out due to the increased US military presence in the area, with more than 14,000 extra troops sent to the Middle East since May of this year. The added military presence was in response to multiple attacks on oil refineries and US drones being shot down.

US intelligence suggests the short range ballistic missiles being stockpiled in Iraq as a result of the issues the Iraqi central government has been facing. These short range ballistic missiles have the capacity to fly 600 miles, meaning that missiles stockpiled in Baghdad could reach Jerusalem. The Iraqi’s do not support the move by Iran but they have little choice due to the protests and unrest happening within their-own country.

US military General Kenneth F McKenzie Jr stated that he does not believe that Tehran has been deterred by the increasing US presence, suggesting that Iran will continue to weaponize the surrounding Middle East for further attacks. The movement of missiles can also be seen as a message to the US that Iran is fed up with the current sanctions on their oil industry, which has been detrimental to their economy. Iran hopes to send a clear message to the US to ease out of the area, or more attacks may be in the near future.

 

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1213464/iran-news-missiles-iraq-jerusalem-world-war-3-usa-donald-trump