China’s President Hu Jintao visited Riyadh last week. It was his second visit in three years. This is a big story, right? Perhaps. It depends on where you are.
I was in New York and the story didn’t rate a mention. Instead, the economic crisis has, not surprisingly, gripped the city’s attention.
The story, however, was big news in China and Saudi Arabia. Sina.com, a leading Chinese news portal, created a special feature for the visit with links to commentary and background information (in the same way CNN might create a special feature for the Gaza crisis). Al Hayat, a major Arabic newspaper, meanwhile devoted its entire second-page to the meeting between President Hu and King Abdullah.
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Who’s to blame for this economic crisis? It’s an important question for governments in Cairo, Islamabad, and Manila: as I wrote last week, they face the challenge of finding jobs for the rising number of migrant workers returning home.
So it’s no surprise many governments are pointing to the West, in particular America, as responsible for factory closures and job losses. This is what makes today’s crisis different, for example, to the Asian crisis a decade ago.
I’ve been looking for evidence of “finger-pointing” in the Arabic and Chinese media. But it strikes me that not everyone is behaving in the same way.
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The Silk Road was, for a while, the world’s largest construction site. From Beijing to Dubai, skyscrapers were erected at a frightening speed. But the economic crisis has taken its toll and the construction sites are closing. Migrant workers are feeling the pinch as they back their bags and head home.
This is a big problem for the Silk Road’s economy. The region accounts for 65 million of the world’s 190 million migrants, according to the World Bank. Many live no more than a few years abroad and most send money home. The two biggest earners, India and China, receive $57 billion annually. It’s a figure equivalent to Microsoft’s annual revenues.
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News network Al Jazeera dominated coverage of the recent fighting the Gaza. Owned by the Emir of Qatar, and headquartered in the Middle East, the channel has a dominant presence in the Middle East. This was evident during the Gaza conflict when its intensive coverage put its competitors to shame.
Al Jazeera knew it too. It paid for large advertisements on the New York Times website explaining to American viewers how they can access its English-language coverage through the internet. This was another ‘Afghanistan moment’, or an opportunity for the channel to win new viewers with its exclusive coverage.
Al Jazeera is one of the Silk Road’s most compelling stories. Yet its influence isn’t limited to the Middle East. The channel has also inspired other Silk Road countries, in particular China.
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The Dubai story has taken some hard knocks in recent months.
Its massive construction program has tended to rely on debt rather than oil. Debt markets however have collapsed as a result of the financial crisis. There is also talk of oil-rich Abu Dhabi having to bailout its neighbor. Dubai’s critics claim that the emirate simply rode a global tide of cheap credit. And, as the Chinese say, when the tide is out, the rocks appear.
I disagree. I’m still a big of Dubai. A recent article in Al Quds Al Arabi underscores why. The author reports how many Iranians, who had bought property in Dubai during the boom years, are now suffering losses. Painful stuff no doubt. But the more important message is why Iranians, and the rest of the world, had flocked to Dubai in the first place and, I believe, will continue to do so in the coming years.
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Ahmed Mussa speaks good Chinese. He should. He’s the Palestinian Authority’s envoy in Beijing. I watched his interview on Xinhua, China’s state news agency, earlier this week. For thirty minutes he argued the Palestinian case in front of his Chinese host. He criticized Israel. But also opposed the rocket attacks by Hamas. He talked of the links between Arab Jews and Arab Muslims. He also worried that the Arab states would fail to unite in opposition.
The fighting in Gaza shines a spotlight on relations between China and the Arab world. No surprise, but the state of relations has changed rapidly over the past decade.
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Is it the end of the Silk Road story? It’s tempting to assume falling oil prices is bad news for the region. After all, the Silk Road accounts for 49% of the world’s oil production. Yet, oil isn’t everything. The region is also the world’s largest manufacturing hub, its factories producing everything from steel to DVD players.
It might sound surprising, but the factories matter more than the oil rigs. How so? The Silk Road is a net oil importer no different to America or Europe. A majority of its economies, accounting for 80% of the region’s total output, consume more oil than they produce. Its oil-hungry factory owners are welcoming the falling oil prices just as they are in the rest of the world.
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Indonesia’s Bali is a beautiful island. But Lombok, its neighbor, is less spoilt. Emaar, Dubai’s giant property developer, agrees. It plans to build a resort on Lombok. Of course, the resort will cater to big spending Americans and Europeans. But it will also cater to Muslims from all parts of the Silk Road. Why? It’s big money these days.
Indonesia has so far struggled to attract Muslim tourists in spite of its status as the world’s largest Muslim country. It’s missing out. Muslim tourists have started travelling to countries more sympathetic to Islam since September 2001. The number of Arabs travelling to Egypt, for instance, has surged in the past few years. Today, it’s the Pyramids, not Disneyland.
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