China’s Middle East Strategy

The Middle East’s emergence as a key front in the new Cold War between the United States and China has become even prominent. Bloomberg believes that Beijing is making efforts to widen the breach between Washington and Saudi Arabia.

China has put its stamp on the region in a way that could hardly have been guessed six months ago, notably by brokering a rapprochement between longtime regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. Remarkably, China Foreign Minister Qin Gang this week launched an effort at encouraging a restart of Israel-Palestine talks.

On the finance front, the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) opened its first overseas office this week—in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The hub is to serve as a strategic destination supporting the agenda of the AIIB—a multilateral development bank conceived almost a decade ago as China’s answer to institutions set up by Western nations.

This followed the shock in Washington when Saudi Arabia and its fellow OPEC P members not only rejected a US request for production increases, but cut output earlier this month.

It’s become inescapable that the Middle East—and specifically a Saudi Arabia led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—is rapidly departing Washington’s orbit in favor of Beijing.

Still, the Middle East’s exchange-rate pegs to the dollar remain a powerful link to America, as do its strong, enduring military ties. So for the US government, all is not lost—yet.

The US dollar remains by far the most powerful force in the global financial system, even if its share of central bank reserves has been waning. And that confers on Washington inimitable power, the threat to impede access to the currency.

That’s the reason the Gulf Cooperation Council members’ use of the dollar as the key currency of cross-border exchange—and not Beijing-sponsored diplomacy—is the ultimate gauge of the council’s geo-economic alignment. A sudden change would be destabilizing for the countries themselves, so any shift would have to be gradual.

But signs of movement are there. Just last month, the UAE made the first settlement of natural gas exports to China denominated in Chinese yuan. That’s an especially interesting precedent after China’s landmark US$60 billion deal in November 2023 for liquefied natural gas from the UAE’s fellow GCC member, Qatar.

That Qatar deal, which saw European buyers pipped for crucial long-term energy supplies, is designed to last until the 2050s. 

“Chinese state-owned energy companies historically did not have the expertise to compete on an equal footing with Western energy companies,” said Justin Dargin, a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Middle East specialist. “This contract highlights how the situation is rapidly evolving.”

Indeed, one thing to watch for is how the currency aspect of the deal unfolds. Shifting approaches toward currencies are also apparent in Saudi Arabia, which was the largest supplier of crude oil to China until Russia displaced it earlier this year.

Riyadh had telegraphed to Beijing in January 2023 that it’s open to discussions about trade in currencies other than the dollar—which is currently used to settle more than 80% of Saudi Arabia’s US$326 billion in annual oil exports, according to Eurizon SLJ Capital calculations.

In addition to becoming the Middle East’s key customer, China is also being approached for more investments of its own. This week, the UAE’s minister of industry and advanced technology, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, was in Beijing seeking to bolster clean-energy cooperation.

That trip came after China and Saudi Arabia signed a number of agreements on renewable and green-hydrogen cooperation during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit in December 2023. And it comes ahead of the UAE hosting COP28, the United Nations climate summit (which Al Jaber, despite presiding over a massive fossil-fuel exporter, is overseeing).

Analysts at Trivium China, a policy research consultancy in Beijing, lent support to Xi’s move into the Middle East. Those green deals enable Chinese clean-tech firms to expand into lucrative foreign markets and strengthen economic and diplomatic ties with major Gulf swing states, they wrote.

While Beijing’s effort at diplomacy should be viewed as less important than currency considerations, there’s a third arena where Washington may wish to remain most vigilant, if it wishes to forestall displacement from the Middle East stage.

What hasn’t yet been seen from China yet is any big headline on a military connection to the Persian Gulf—whose sea lanes have long been overseen by the US. 

 

Al Quds Day commemorated in India

People in Mumbai (India) commemorated Yaum Al Quds on April 21, 2023, which is held annually on the last Friday of the Holy month of Ramadan. The event is an opportunity to speak out against oppression around the world, particularly the occupation of Palestine.

Large crowds gathered in various parts of the city to participate in the event, with many women joining the rallies. One rally took place from Khoja Masjid to Kesar Baug Hall in the Dongri area, while another took place from Zaib Palace to Chai Coffee in Andheri.

At the Haidery Jama Masjid in Mira Road, participants chanted slogans against the Israeli apartheid regime and its supporters in the US and UK.

Ehsan Haider Raza, a participant from Mira Road, expressed concern about the ongoing genocide of Palestinians and called on governments around the world to take notice and take action against it.

“The ongoing genocide of Palestinians is a cause of concern for the global community. Governments from around the world need to sit up, take notice of the daily killings taking place in occupied-Palestine,” he said.

A participant from Andheri, who preferred to remain anonymous, criticized the hypocrisy of the governments in the US and Europe, saying that if they can take a stand against the occupation of Ukraine by Russia, they should also take a similar stand against the 75-year occupation of Palestinian land.

Overall, the Yaum Al Quds event in Mumbai served as a platform for people to speak out against oppression and show solidarity with the people of Palestine.

 

Why Sudan conflict matters to the world?

Fighting in Sudan between forces loyal to two top generals has put the nation at risk of collapse and could also have consequences far beyond its borders.

Both sides have tens of thousands of fighters, foreign backers, mineral riches and other resources that could insulate them from sanctions. It’s a recipe for the kind of prolonged conflict that has devastated other countries in the Middle East and Africa, from Lebanon and Syria to Libya and Ethiopia.

The fighting, which began as Sudan attempted to transition to democracy, already has killed hundreds of people and left millions trapped in urban areas, sheltering from gunfire, explosions and looters.

A look at what is happening and the impact it could have outside Sudan.

Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, head of the armed forces, and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the leader of a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces that grew out of Darfur’s notorious Janjaweed militias, are each seeking to seize control of Sudan. It comes two years after they jointly carried out a military coup and derailed a transition to democracy that had begun after protesters in 2019 helped force the ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir. In recent months, negotiations were underway for a return to the democratic transition.

The victor of the latest fighting is likely to be Sudan’s next president, with the loser facing exile, arrest or death. A long-running civil war or partition of the Arab and African country into rival fiefdoms are also possible.

Terrified Sudanese are fleeing Khartoum, hauling whatever belongings they could carry and trying to get out of the capital, where forces loyal to the country's top two generals have been battling each other with tanks, artillery and airstrikes since Saturday.

 Alex De Waal, a Sudan expert at Tufts University, wrote in a memo to colleagues this week that the conflict should be seen as the first round of a civil war.

“Unless it is swiftly ended, the conflict will become a multi-level game with regional and some international actors pursuing their interests, using money, arms supplies and possibly their own troops or proxies,” he wrote.

Sudan is Africa’s third-largest country by area and straddles the Nile River. It uneasily shares its waters with regional heavyweights Egypt and Ethiopia. Egypt relies on the Nile to support its population of over 100 million, and Ethiopia is working on a massive upstream dam that has alarmed both Cairo and Khartoum.

Egypt has close ties to Sudan’s military, which it sees as an ally against Ethiopia. Cairo has reached out to both sides in Sudan to press for a cease-fire but is unlikely to stand by if the military faces defeat.

Sudan borders five additional countries, Libya, Chad, the Central African Republic, Eritrea and South Sudan, which seceded in 2011 and took 75% of Khartoum’s oil resources with it. Nearly all are mired in their own internal conflicts, with various rebel groups operating along the porous borders.

“What happens in Sudan will not stay in Sudan,” said Alan Boswell of the International Crisis Group. “Chad and South Sudan look most immediately at risk of potential spillover. But the longer (the fighting) drags on the more likely it is we see major external intervention.”

Arab Gulf countries have looked to the Horn of Africa in recent years as they have sought to project power across the region.

The United Arab Emirates, a rising military power that has expanded its presence across the Middle East and East Africa, has close ties to the Rapid Support Forces, which sent thousands of fighters to aid the UAE and Saudi Arabia in their war against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Russia, meanwhile, has long harbored plans to build a naval base capable of hosting up to 300 troops and four ships in Port Sudan, on a crucial Red Sea trading route for energy shipments to Europe.

The Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary outfit with close ties to the Kremlin, has made inroads across Africa in recent years and has been operating in Sudan since 2017.

The United State and the European Union have imposed sanctions on two Wagner-linked gold mining firms in Sudan accused of smuggling.

Sudan became an international pariah when it hosted Osama bin Laden and other militants in the 1990s, when al-Bashir had empowered a hard-line Islamist government.

Its isolation deepened over the conflict in the western Darfur region in the 2000s, when Sudanese forces and the Janjaweed were accused of carrying out atrocities while suppressing a local rebellion. The International Criminal Court eventually charged al-Bashir with genocide.

The US removed Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism after the government in Khartoum agreed to forge ties with Israel in 2020. But billions of dollars in loans and aid were put on hold after the 2021 military coup. That, along with the war in Ukraine and global inflation, sent the economy into free-fall.

Sudan’s economic woes would seem to provide an opening for Western nations to use economic sanctions to pressure both sides to stand down.

But in Sudan, as in other resource-rich African nations, armed groups have long enriched themselves through the shadowy trade in rare minerals and other natural resources.

Dagalo, a one-time camel herder from Darfur, has vast livestock holdings and gold mining operations. He’s also believed to have been well-paid by Gulf countries for the RSF’s service in Yemen battling Iran-aligned rebels.

The military controls much of the economy, and can also count on businessmen in Khartoum and along the banks of the Nile who grew rich during al-Bashir’s long rule and who view the RSF as crude warriors from the hinterlands.

“Control over political funds will be no less decisive than the battlefield,” De Waal said. “(The military) will want to take control of gold mines and smuggling routes. The RSF will want to interrupt major transport arteries including the road from Port Sudan to Khartoum.”

The sheer number of would-be mediators — including the US, the UN, the European Union, Egypt, Gulf countries, the African Union and the eight-nation eastern Africa bloc known as IGAD — could render any peace efforts more complicated than the war itself. “The external mediators risk becoming a traffic jam with no policeman,” De Waal said.

 

Israel: Gantz holds lead over Netanyahu

The National Unity party, headed by MK Benny Gantz, would earn 27 seats if elections were held today, while the Likud Party headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would earn 26 seats, according to a new poll published by Maariv on Friday.

The poll additionally found that Yesh Atid would earn 19 seats, Shas would earn nine seats, the United Torah Judaism party would earn seven seats, Meretz, Hadash-Ta'al and Yisrael Beytenu would each earn six seats, the Religious Zionist Party and Otzma Yehudit would each earn five seats and Ra'am would earn four seats. The Labor Party would no pass the electoral threshold.

The poll results leave the current opposition with 68 seats (although Hadash-Ta'al does not traditionally sit in coalitions and is usually counted as its own bloc in polls) and the current coalition with 52 seats.

Earlier this week, a poll by N12 found that the National Unity party would earn 28 seats, while the Likud would earn 24 seats.

The poll also found that Yesh Atid would earn 20 seats, the Religious Zionist party and Otzma Yehudit would earn 11 seats, Shas would earn 10 seats, the United Torah Judaism party would earn seven seats and Yisrael Beytenu, Hadash-Ta'al, Meretz and Ra'am would earn five seats each.

Additionally, a poll by Channel 14 this week found that the Likud would earn 30 seats, the National Unity party would earn 29 seats, Yesh Atid would earn 14 seats, Shas would earn 10 seats, the United Torah Judaism party would earn eight seats, Yisrael Beytenu would earn six seats, the Religious Zionist party, Ra'am and Hadash-Ta'al would earn five seats each and Otzma Yehudit and Meretz would earn four seats each.

The Channel 14 poll left the current coalition with 57 seats and the current opposition with 63 seats.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, elections, poll,

The World Beyond Ukraine

“Ukraine has united the world,” declared Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a speech on the first anniversary of the start of the war with Russia. The war may have united the West, but it has left the world divided. And that rift will only widen if Western countries fail to address its root causes.

The traditional transatlantic alliance of European and North American countries has mobilized in unprecedented fashion for a protracted conflict in Ukraine. It has offered extensive humanitarian support for people inside Ukraine and for Ukrainian refugees. And it is preparing for what will be a massive rebuilding job after the war. But outside Europe and North America, the defense of Ukraine is not on top of agenda.

Few governments endorse the brazen Russian invasion, yet many remain unpersuaded by the West’s insistence that the struggle for freedom and democracy in Ukraine is also theirs.

As French President Emmanuel Macron said at the Munich Security Conference in February, “I am struck by how we have lost the trust of the global South.” He is right. Western conviction about the war and its importance is matched elsewhere by skepticism at best and outright disdain at worst.

The gap between the West and the rest goes beyond the rights and wrongs of the war. Instead, it is the product of deep frustration—anger, in truth—about the Western-led mismanagement of globalization since the end of the Cold War.

The concerted Western response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has thrown into sharp relief the occasions when the West violated its own rules or when it was conspicuously missing in action in tackling global problems.

Such arguments can seem beside the point in light of the daily brutality meted out by Russian forces in Ukraine. But Western leaders should address them, not dismiss them. The gulf in perspectives is dangerous for a world facing enormous global risks. And it threatens the renewal of a rules-based order that reflects a new, multipolar balance of power in the world.

The Russian invasion has produced remarkable unity and action from the liberal democratic world. Western countries have coordinated an extensive slate of economic sanctions targeting Russia. European states have increasingly aligned their climate policies on decarbonization with national security-related commitments to end their dependence on Russian oil and gas.

Western governments have rallied to support Ukraine with enormous shipments of military aid. Finland and Sweden aim to be soon admitted to NATO.

Europe has adopted a welcoming policy toward the eight million Ukrainian refugees within its borders.

All these efforts have been advocated by a US administration that has been sure-footed in partnering with European allies and others.

The squabbles over Afghanistan and the AUKUS security partnership (a 2021 deal struck by Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States that irked France) seem a long time ago.

Many in the West have been surprised at this turn of events. Clearly, so was the Kremlin, which imagined that its invasion would not provoke a strong and determined Western response. The West’s unity and commitment are not matched elsewhere.

At the beginning of the war, the UN General Assembly voted 141 to 5, with 47 absences or abstentions, to condemn the Russian invasion. But that result flattered to deceive.

“Most non-European countries that voted to deplore Russia’s aggression last March did not follow up with sanctions. Doing the right thing at the UN can be an alibi for not doing much about the war in the real world.”

In a series of UN votes since the war started, around 40 countries representing nearly 50% of the world’s population have regularly abstained or voted against motions condemning the Russian invasion.

Fifty-eight countries abstained from a vote, in April 2022, to expel Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, two-thirds of the world’s population lives in countries that are officially neutral or supportive of Russia. These countries do not form some kind of axis of autocracy; they include several notable democracies, such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, and South Africa.

Much of the fence-sitting is not driven by disagreements over the conflict in Ukraine but is instead a symptom of a wider syndrome, anger at perceived Western double standards and frustration at stalled reform efforts in the international system.

The distinguished Indian diplomat Shivshankar Menon put the point sharply in Foreign Affairs earlier this year when he wrote, “Alienated and resentful, many developing countries see the war in Ukraine and the West’s rivalry with China as distracting from urgent issues such as debt, climate change, and the effects of the pandemic.”

Courtesy: Foreign Affairs

 

Strikes cripple German rail network and airports

Rail workers went on strike across Germany on Friday, bringing national operator Deutsche Bahn's services largely to a halt, in the latest of a series of stoppages over pay in Europe's largest economy.

The walkout, organized by the EVG union, was due to run from 0100 GMT, though the train network was expected to be impacted for the whole day.

State-owned Deutsche Bahn said all its long-distance connections would be cancelled and that few commuter trains would run.

The EVG, which is negotiating on behalf of 230,000 workers, is seeking a 12% wage increase, or at least an additional 650 euros (US$715) per month. Deutsche Bahn has offered 5% and one-off payments of up to 2,500 euros.

Germany has witnessed some of its most disruptive strikes in decades since last year, when the war in Ukraine sent energy and food prices soaring, leading to union pressure for wages to rise in line with living costs.

High inflation has also exacerbated labour problems in sectors like aviation that have faced a difficult transition following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Friday's transport strike was set to coincide with a walkout at four German airports - Duesseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne Bonn and Stuttgart - by members of the Verdi union.

A strike at the first three locations on Thursday led to around 700 departures being cancelled.

 

 

Record heatwave scorching much of Asia

A record-smashing heatwave has been scorching South and South-east Asia, with temperatures so searing in places like India’s West Bengal that people there are frying eggs under the heat of the noonday sun, reports The Straits Time.

Meteorologists have been tracking temperatures of as high as 45 deg C in India, Thailand and Myanmar, and 42 to 43 deg C in Bangladesh, Laos, Vietnam, Nepal and China. These are temperatures that most of these countries have not experienced in decades.

Populations across the continent are cranking up their air-conditioners and electric fans, seeking shelter in shopping malls and in their offices, or praying for rain.

People are dying of heatstroke as they gather in thick, large crowds under the sun, and students are landing in hospitals as their schools bake in the heat.

Power grids are stretched beyond their capacities, and farmers are looking at failed harvests.

The continent is experiencing the worst April heatwave in its history, said climatologist and weather historian Maximiliano Herrera, who tracks extreme weather on his Twitter account.

“It will just get worse,” he warned.

Climatologists and scientists say this is just the start of a long dry spell that will likely be exacerbated by the El Nino weather phenomenon forecast to hit later in 2023. Asia will have to brace itself for even warmer days ahead, they warn.

At least 13 people died from heatstroke in India’s western Maharashtra state after attending a state award ceremony on Sunday that drew over a million people.

In Ahmedabad, the most populous city in Gujarat state, the air had been so hot and humid that asphalt on a freshly laid road did not harden, but instead melted.

At least two other states in India – Tripura in the north-east and West Bengal in the east – have ordered schools to shut this week as the temperature rose above 40 deg C.

In the Philippines, where the temperature hit 37 deg C, close to 150 secondary schoolchildren in a province south of capital Manila suffered heatstroke after a power outage hit their school. Seven of them fainted; two had to be taken to a hospital. The school has classrooms crammed with some 60 students each, and only electric fans to cool them.

The surge in power demand is already straining power grid capacities in poorer nations like Bangladesh, which is being forced to cut power to millions of people.

India is also warning of blackouts as higher use of air-conditioners and irrigation pumps depletes fuel used by its power plants.

But scientists are not laughing. It is warmer now because of climate change, they say.

Dr Fahad Saeed, regional lead for climate policy at Climate Analytics said, “This year’s record heat in Thailand, China and South Asia is a clear climate trend and will cause public health challenges for years to come.”

India’s scorching temperatures are making its population of over 1.4 billion – set to become the world’s largest – more vulnerable to illness and hunger, he said.

China has already seen major disruptions to industrial production in recent years because of extreme weather. It was gripped by a severe drought in 2022 that impacted the Yangtze River – a key conduit used to irrigate farms and power the massive Three Gorges Dam power station.