What are the main differences between the Arabs and Chinese? Religion is an easy answer. There are far more believers in the Middle East. Yet, this isn’t entirely correct, as there are also many Chinese Christians and Muslims. A more useful way to answer the question is to examine what the Arabs and Chinese are [...]
Gallery Archive
China’s CCTV Arabic is here. And it’s different.
China’s state broadcaster, CCTV, has finally launched its Arabic language channel. I’m wondering who will watch it. After all, the Americans, British, French, and Russians already have Arabic language channels, and, a proliferation of satellite news channels, like Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera, leave Arab viewers spoilt for choice. Yet, CCTV Arabic is different. Its anchors are [...]
Need a new foreign ministry?
It seems China has created a niche for itself constructing foreign ministries. I recently observed that the China State Construction Engineering Corporation is building offices for the Algerian Foreign Ministry. However, the China Construction Third Engineering Division Corporation is also building offices for the Yemeni Foreign Ministry. The Chinese government provided a 70 million yuan ($10 [...]
Q&A: Eckart Woertz on the Gulf’s agricultural investments
The Gulf’s purchases of foreign agricultural land have grabbed media headlines. And rightly so. The Middle East is the world’s largest regional importer of food. (It’s a little known fact that Egypt imports more wheat than China every year). Eckart Woertz is head of the economics department at the Gulf Research Centre in Dubai, a fellow [...]
A Quick Shake of The Bottle
You sometimes have to shake a bottle to see what’s inside. In 2006, Israeli warplanes struck at Lebanese infrastructure. Suddenly there were stories of Chinese construction companies packing up and leaving Lebanon, and it was only then did it become obvious how many were operating in the country. Much the same is true today. The [...]
The Turkish Link
Saudi billionaire Prince Al Waleed is the emerging world’s Warren Buffet. He’s as comfortable investing in the United Bank of Africa as he is investing in Citibank. So, it was worth taking notice when the Turkish daily, Sabah, reported last week that Al Waleed intends to invest up to $5 billion in Turkey. He isn’t [...]
The Arab media’s response to events in China
The Arab print media so far isn’t paying much attention to events in China. There was a story on the front page of Al Hayat yesterday. But this appears to have been an exception. Most of the articles are buried deeper in the papers and are quoting foreign news agencies. I haven’t seen any editorials [...]
China, Iran, and Syria go head-to-head
Two foreign parties have designs on a Middle East country. One of the parties is Iranian and is already well entrenched in the country. Sound familiar? Maybe. But this story has a twist. China’s Geely and Iran’s Khodro are car companies. They both produce low-cost cars, and they both have ambitions to capture a share [...]
“China cheat sheet helps investors survive”, Bloomberg, September 1, 2010
“No more silver bullets for Beijing”, Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2010
“China’s historic return to the Gulf”, Foreign Policy, April 2, 2010
