China and the Muslim Peoples of the Middle East
China and the Muslim Peoples of the Middle East
Remarks to the Rumi Forum
Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr., USFS (Ret.)
Washington, DC, 15 December, 2009
Distant as they are from each other, the peoples of the Middle East and China have interacted since well before Islam. In 650 C.E., the then Caliph sent one of the Prophet Mohammed’s companions as an emissary to the newly established Tang Dynasty. That date marks the beginning of Islam in China. Muslims have ever since played a prominent role in Chinese society.
One hears the same stories among Muslims in China as elsewhere. Nasrudin Hoca – جحا in the Arab world – is known to Chinese as Afántí [阿凡提]. Faced with the prospect of speaking to this well-informed audience on a subject of which I know so little, I was reminded of Afántí’s nervousness when he had to do the same. He began by saying: “M-m-my f-f-friends, when I came here today only God and I myself knew what I was about to say to you AND NOW ONLY GOD KNOWS!”
And, then, there are his famous insights into religion. When the Imam at his mosque criticized him by declaring that “a pious man grows a beard,” Afántí is said to have replied: “Then my goat must be the most pious of all.”
I will not go on. Most of you know all these stories. So do many Chinese, including not a few who are not Muslim. There has been a lot of interaction between China and the Dar al-Islam. Not all this interaction was peaceful. The battle of the Talas River, in 751, set the boundary between Tang China and the Abbasid Caliphate, establishing a frontier between China’s resolutely secular society and the Muslim world.
Five years later, a revolt led by Muslim Persians and Turks in the Chinese army greatly weakened the Tang. The boundary between the Islamic model of governance and the Chinese political culture thus stood, ensuring that the mostly Turkic peoples of the Central Asia, many of whom were then Buddhist, would eventually adhere to Islam.
Thereafter, the Silk Road as well as seaborne trade to the South China Coast were largely in the hands of Muslims – Chinese as well as Arabs, Persians, and Turks. The great Ming Admiral Zheng He, who commanded the Chinese naval expeditions to the Middle East and Africa of the early 15th Century, was a case in point. His ancestors were Muslims who had participated in the Mongol conquest of China. (Admiral Zheng’s grandfather and great-grandfather both carried the title of Hajji.)
The Mongol take-down of walled cities like Baghdad had been facilitated by Chinese engineers in Hülegü Khan’s armies. As Admiral Zheng’s example attests, however, Muslim Chinese played a long and active role in sustaining peaceful Chinese contact with Arabs, Persians, Turks, and other Muslim peoples. This cross-cultural interaction and liaison were, of course, interrupted by the reorientation of international relations imposed by Western colonialism and by the domestic preoccupations of both the Ottoman Empire and the foreign (Manchu) Qing Dynasty in China. The post-colonial era in the Middle East and the return of China to wealth and power are fostering the resumption and intensification of long lapsed relationships.
The Prophet Mohammed advised Muslims to “seek knowledge even unto China,” but it would be fair to say that Islam is far more familiar to Chinese than Chinese culture is to Arabs, Berbers, Kurds, Persians, Somalis, and Turks. Official statistics count about 25 million active Muslims in China, only some of whom are ethnic minorities like the Uygurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and Tajiks of Xinjiang. Much evidence suggests that the number of Chinese who consider themselves Muslim is well over 100 million. Meanwhile, some of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese now working in the Arab world will take Middle Eastern versions of Islam back o China when they go home. They have converted. There are already 3,500 Koranic schools, nine Islamic universities, and at least 28,000 mosques in today’s China. There will now be more, with additional schools of thought associated with them.
This year China overtook the United States as the largest exporter to Arab markets, creating a rapidly expanding set of job opportunities for Chinese with expertise on the contemporary Middle East. Dozens of Chinese universities and institutes now teach Arabic and hundreds of Chinese are enrolled in Arab universities. In a few commodities markets in China, like the city of Yiwu in Zhejiang Province, Arabic now rivals English as the second language of Chinese traders. This past summer, Chinese Central Television inaugurated a twenty-four hour Arabic-language service. The appearance of Chinese officials who speak fluent Arabic on satellite news services like Al Jazeera is no longer a novelty. The success of Chinese oil companies in the recent auction of exploration and production rights in Iraq owes much to the fluency in Arabic of Chinese officials and businessmen.
China’s relations with Persians and Turks are also developing rapidly, though in many respects they lag behind those with the Arab world. In the case of Iran, the lag reflects both the cultural contrast between Persian religiosity and Chinese secularism and the apparent difficulty the Iranian state has had in translating declarations of intention to cooperate in energy matters into agreed prices and terms that can be realized in actual contracts and projects. Still, more and more projects are underway.
Western sanctions have opened opportunities for Chinese companies that they find irresistible. A Chinese company is building the Tehran Metro. A Chinese automobile manufacturer is producing cars in Iran. Chinese oil and gas companies have committed to substantial investment in Iran, which China looks to as a major long-term source of energy.
In the case of Turkey, the lag is due in part to the fact that Chinese and Turkish industries are more often competitors than partners in the European, Middle Eastern, and Central Asian markets. Other inhibitions derive from Turkey’s pan-Turkic sympathy with Uygur separatism. Turkey’s centuries-long focus on Europe rather than Asia is also a factor.
Sino-Turkish trade is well below its potential levels. The Great Recession has further depressed it. At present there are only a handful of Turkish students in China and less than two hundred Chinese students in Turkey, though Turkish universities have begun to market themselves in China.
In the Middle East overall, however, interest in China is rapidly increasing. China is the fastest growing market for the region’s oil and gas as well as energy-intensive industries like cement, steel, fertilizer, and other petrochemicals. There is intense Arab interest both in downstream investment in China and in industrial development in the Middle East that can add value to exports destined to China.
Trade and investment are the drivers for language learning and cultural exchange. Some far-sighted Arab institutions, like Saudi Aramco, began to send students to China years ago. The result is a growing cadre of Chinese-speaking Saudi engineers and Saudi Aramco’s new refinery in Fujian. (That will be joined soon by an even larger investment in South China from Kuwait.) There is, I believe, only one Confucius Center in the Middle East (at Suez Canal University in Egypt) but thousands of Arab students are now studying in China. The ranks of those on the Arab side familiar with Chinese ways are thus rapidly growing.
This trend, though in its early stages, seems likely to accelerate and intensify. There is little reason to doubt that it will in time embrace Iran and Turkey. Already, about 40,000 Iranian businessmen and women travel to China each year.
All this is happening with the enthusiastic welcome of governments on both sides but almost entirely unguided by them. It is a product of individual and business interests, guided only by the invisible hand even in the case of state-owned companies. (Their behavior does not differ in any important regard from that of their large, publicly held corporate counterparts and rivals in the West.)
The way in which ties between China and the Middle East has developed is impressive, but it has not been without difficulties. The refusal of Middle East oil producers to allow foreign partners to do much upstream on their territory has driven Chinese companies toward the more accommodating commercial environments of sub-Saharan Africa. But Arab and Iranian nationalism are not the only impediments to expanded business between the Middle East and China. Among other things, the cultural divides to be bridged are vast.
In fact, if substantial amounts of money weren’t at stake for both sides, rapprochement would probably quickly bog down. Arab casualness about time and meeting preparation does not mesh well with the obsessive punctuality and meticulous planning of contemporary Chinese. Chinese boisterousness clashes with Arab reserve. Middle Eastern deference to vertical allegiances contradicts Chinese emphasis on social equality and face. Chinese agnosticism contrasts with Arab and Persian religiosity. Muslim fatalism gainsays Chinese optimism. Frankly, in my experience, it is easy for the two sides to drive each other nuts. That creates a role for foreign intermediaries who understand both cultures to help them find ways of doing business with each other.
I have no experience dealing with Iranian companies but my impression is that they have a tendency to overestimate their bargaining power to the point that lots of deals fail to reach the implementation stage. That may or may not be true. I cannot comment on the quality of the interactions between Iranian companies and their Chinese counterparts.
I also have no experience in observing the interaction between Chinese and Turkish companies.
Given both the modernization of Turkish culture, including Turkey’s European-style commercial practices, I suspect that the obstacles to Sino-Turkish economic cooperation are not great. But, for now – in the absence of a serious effort by both sides to build business cooperation, this remains a matter of conjecture. My guess is that, given China’s increasing importance in the global economy, stronger and more intense economic relations between Turkey and China are just a matter of time, and not a very long time, at that.
The current pattern in which Turkey sells marble and other raw materials to China while buying a vastly larger quantity of Chinese manufactures can be changed if Turks focus on changing it. Inasmuch as its major exports are oil and gas, Iran, of course, has an easier time balancing its trade with China. In any event, the current, relatively low level of interaction between China, Iran, and Turkey is unlikely to persist.
Foreigners often remark on the extent to which the Chinese gravitate to the long view. Chinese political culture does seem to predispose those who participate in it to think strategically and to reason about foreign relations in terms of their country’s especially long historical experience. In the early 1970s, Nixon and Kissinger were entranced by the extent to which Chinese officials thought and spoke like the leaders of a world power, even though the country they led was then, at most, a rather weak regional power, very much on the defensive against its – and our – Soviet enemies. China has changed in many ways but not in this one.
From the Chinese perspective, the Middle East is not just where over 60 percent of the world’s oil and 40 percent of its natural gas reserves are found. It is also the strategic point where Asia, Africa, and Europe converge. It is where the trade routes and lines of communication connecting Asia and Europe intersect, a fact that last year produced the first Chinese naval deployment to the region since the 15th Century. The Chinese are also aware of the extent to which Turkish agreement or acquiescence has a major bearing on an amazing range of important issues affecting Europe and Asia. Among these are those touching the Caucasus, Russia, the Black Sea countries, Iran, Iraq, Central Asia, Syria, Israel, Palestine, Cyprus, Greece, the Balkan countries, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Arabian Peninsula, and the member states of the Islamic Conference, not to mention NATO and EU enlargement. Turkey’s strategic importance is hard to overestimate.
The Middle East has also become a major source of global investment flows. Its markets, including its capital, arms, and consumer markets, are prizes for which the world’s great economic powers must compete. The region’s financial links to China are rapidly strengthening. Its political economy is a central determinant of the global future. What happens in the Middle East affects the vital interests and foreign and defense policies of great powers on all three continents. In recent years, no region has played as great a role in the devaluation of American global power. Some Chinese confess to Schadenfreude about this.
The Middle East is also, of course, the epicenter of Islam, an expanding faith that defines the lives of nearly a fourth of humanity, including many in China. The Middle East’s quarrels, as we Americans have learned to our sorrow, can easily spill over to affect the domestic tranquility of nations far from the region. China seeks to pursue economic and social development and to avoid being sucked into political or military controversies. Its foreign policy seeks to foster the “peaceful international environment” it believes it needs to do this. This gives it a vital interest in the stability of the Middle East. That interest and the vacuums created by American policy failures there are now driving China warily toward greater engagement in the region’s affairs.
China understands the causal link between the Israel-Palestine issue and the terrorism with global reach that has taken root among the world’s 340 million Arabs and 1.2 billion or more other Muslims. It also understands Israel’s strategic dilemmas and is acutely aware of America’s special relationship with the Jewish state. Its own relations with Israel remain quiet but productive, especially in the area of high tech trade. But, unlike the United States, China has not delegated the formulation of its policies toward the Middle East to Israel or any other third party. It remains free of passionate attachments in the region and careful to avoid entangling alliances.
China avows that it seeks peace, commerce, and friendship with all nations. It wishes to avoid becoming embroiled in whatever quarrels break out between them. Like Mu’awiyah, the founder of the Ummayad Dynasty and his handling of the tenuous “hair” that connected him to others, Chinese leaders are careful neither to pull too hard not to yield too easily in their relations with other states. And, having been subjected to decades of sanctions itself, China both objects to them in principle and dismisses them as usually counterproductive.
These traits are most clearly exemplified in China’s handling of issues relating to Iran. The United States encouraged China to collaborate with Iran under the Shah as part of the global effort to contain Soviet expansionism. Beijing’s relationship with Tehran survived the Islamic revolution. China has not been averse to reaping whatever benefit it can from the contention between America and Iran, but it has tried very hard to keep its distance from the confrontation itself.
China became a net importer of oil in 1993. That gave it a major new rationale to cultivate Iran.
Unilateral efforts by the United States to isolate Iran squeezed out our companies and those of our European allies and created a vacuum in Iran’s oil and gas sectors. Chinese, Indians, Japanese, and others could and did move to fill this vacuum. About 15 percent of China’s oil imports now come from Iran. China does not want to see a nuclear-armed Iran but it will not take direction from the United States or Israel, abandon its principles, or deny itself access to Iranian energy supplies in a feckless effort to prevent Iran from mastering the complete fuel cycle.
Somewhat ironically and perhaps beside the point, the United States is now said to be encouraging Saudi Arabia and others to step up oil and gas exports to China in order to undercut Chinese dependence on Iran.
The Saudis, Kuwaitis, and other Gulf Cooperation Council members do not need much urging. In many respects, they – rather than the Chinese – have provided the impetus for the rapid strengthening of Sino-Arab ties. As I mentioned, China is now their fastest growing market and the largest source of their imports.
The International Energy Agency predicts that in 2015 China will buy 70 percent of its imported oil from the GCC. McKinsey projects annual two-way trade between China and the Middle East in 2020 as somewhere between $350 and $500 billion, most of it with the GCC. (To put this in perspective, annual trade between the United States and the GCC today is a bit over $70 billion.) The Chinese relationship with the Gulf Arabs and Iran seems destined to become a significant factor in the global economy.
The same is also probably true of Turkey which, as the 21st Century progresses, seems less wedded to Europe, less deferential to the United States, less obsessed with Russia, and less concerned about regional reactions to the reassertion of Turkish influence and power. And, if Turkey still dreams of a sphere of cultural influence among the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, it appears to recognize that this sphere will not incorporate the Uygurs, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz of Xinjiang, whose destiny remains unbreakably connected to that of the Han majority in China.
The reemergence of Muslim identity in Turkey, however disturbing it may be to Kemalist secularists, adds a potentially important non-ethnic dimension to Sino-Turkish relations.
Strengthened relations with China seem in fact to suit the strategic purposes of the Muslim peoples of the Middle East as well as the Chinese. In the case of Iran, a stable relationship with China is a hedge against pressure from the U.S. and the EU. In the case of GCC countries like Saudi Arabia, ties to China are a supplement and offset to perceived overdependence on the United States. (So, by the way, are ties to India.) In the case of Turkey, China is an alternative to European rebuff, an anchor to windward of Russia, and a balance to reliance on Turkey’s alliance with the United States.
What China is not and is not likely to be in the foreseeable future, however, is either a substitute or a counter to American military power in the Middle East. Nor is major competition to American, European, and Russian arms sales in Middle Eastern markets likely soon to come from China. China is not yet a major factor in the international arms trade. Unlike other major military powers, it is not dependent on arms exports to sustain its defense industrial base. China will sell arms where others do not but it has yet to emerge as a technology leader with state-of-the-art defense systems of the sort Gulf Arab defense ministers, in particular, find irresistible. It will take China a couple of decades to achieve this rank. In the interim, European, American, and Russian companies will control the arms market and, barring fiscal collapse, the United States will remain the central element in the balance of power in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the Gulf Arabs, Iran, and China – if not Turkey, with its interior lines of communication – will continue to rely on the United States Navy to guarantee freedom of navigation and the security of their energy trade.