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THE ASIATIC LANDMASS AND THE GEO-STRATEGIC ALLIANCE BETWEEN CHINA AND TURKEY
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
American Chronicle
September 22, 2008
CA
Before precisely 100 years, Turkey (in fact, by then, Ottoman Empire)
and Zhongguo (China´s Chinese name, meaning ´the Middle Kingdom´)
were at the same wavelength. Both old empires were facing the onslaught
of the perfidious European colonial powers, England and France.
Both countries, Turkey and China, entered in 1908, into the last
phase of the then sociopolitical system that had survived almost
intact for many long centuries.
More importantly, China and Turkey represented two vast cultural
regions whereby the central authority had not undergone the necessary
adaptation into historical developments - even worse: the central
authority had failed to lead these (or other) developments (as in both
cases the central authority had been used to for several millennia).
Common Experience and Historical Evolution
In 1908, Turkey entered the phase of the Young Turks (Genc Turkler)
administration, ensured by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP
/ in Turkish: Ä°ttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti); and China attested the
rise of the Puyi, last king, to power.
The two vast countries were targeted by the treacherous, colonial
powers, England and France. Acting similarly in the Western and
Eastern confines of a continent that suffered greatly because of their
vicious and heinous activities, England and France managed to fool
other European countries and engage them in a colonial competition
that would finally turn to their exclusive profit.
Thus, China had to confront not only the French (already in control
in Indochina) and the English (in control in India) but also Russia
(that expanded in Far East earlier, and later in Central Asia, but
defeated by Japan in 1905), Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and
consequently the United States (then in control in the Philippines)
and East Asia´s foremost military power, Japan.
As China was in decay, the Chinese throne had lost contact with the
world affairs; coming out of a greater interaction with the European
powers (that have been permanently in discord down to our day),
the Ottoman Empire managed to strike a deal of alliance with Austria
-Hungary and Germany, the two central European powers that were then in
alliance with Italy. Still this was not enough as the Ottoman Empire
had been weakened by the same treacherous and pernicious practices
of England and France, and had lost all its African provinces except
Libya (invaded by Italy in 1911). The colonial diplomacies had targeted
the Ottoman and the Persian Empires for several centuries before the
Ottoman collapse in the aftermath of WW I.
Using successively different countries and peoples, the Anglo-French
diplomacy had engulfed the Ottoman Empire into ceaseless wars against
Austria - Hungary, Russia, and Persia, and deliberately instigated
rebellions of various ethno-religious groups to whom they were
promising all they wished in order to mobilize them against their
own country, namely the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, England and
France managed always that none of the neighboring states invaded or
controlled any geo-strategically critical part of the Ottoman Empire;
their concern with Russia was great as the risk of a Russian arrival
at Mosul was high.
The same, immoral and inhuman practices were pursued against the
Middle Kingdom (China); the two Opium Wars reveal the monstrosity of
the Anglo-French who managed to involve tsarist expansionist Russia
and ignorant, gullible America in their criminal plans, and finally
enroll them as parties of the Tianjin Treaty (1858). What was at stake
was the entire Chinese empire which was forced to open more ports and
legalize the opium trade, with nefarious, suicidal results of course.
The supposedly civilized colonial countries that pretended to be so
genuinely interested in science, knowledge, and Lights, sent armies
to loot and burn down Xiyang lou, the Old Summer Palace complex in
the Chinese capital, which was a real temple of Art.
With the parallel past experience, the same historical enemies, and
similar great potentialities in the future, the two countries must
closely examine how concerted action, multifaceted cooperation and
strategic alliance will guarantee for both great perspectives in the
rising multi-polar world.
China´s and Turkey´s Common Perspectives
An evaluation of the two countries´ common perspectives hinges on an
enumeration of existing threats and challenges, feasible targets, and
possibilities for both countries to envision themselves as pillars of
a vast continental community of countries devoid of foreign involvement
and interference.
We have to place the aforementioned comparisons within the context of
a world exiting from an uni-polar system whereby the main country -
pole (the United States) failed to maintain its supremacy and control,
and is currently exposed to a disastrous economic - monetary collapse.
In fact, in 2008, several countries have risen to importance and
are currently competing for an influential role in the shaping of
the destiny of the Mankind; USA, China, Japan, Russia, and India keep
monitoring the process of formation of a huge union of states in Europe
whereby prevail (and at times cancel one another) several approaches
to what a European Union should or can be. For this reason we don´t
refer here to the leading Western European countries (Germany, France,
England and Italy) separately. Next to the aforementioned, Brazil and
Mexico try to become a pole of Latin American influence and global
aspiration. Next to them, Turkey has long kept an impossible balance
between opposite interests, namely becoming the leading force of the
Islamic World or adhering to the (under construction) European Union.
In this regard, the fact that Asia - with more than 1.2 billion Muslims
- is the Islamic continent par excellence concerns both Turkey and
China greatly. Controlling a large part of them will make of Turkey
de facto one of the leading forces of the world, thus canceling the
historical defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
Suffice it that Turkey does not accept European concepts projected
onto the system of Islamic terrorism with the purpose of destroying
Islam itself totally. On the other hand, containing and integrating
its sizeable Muslim population (in Eastern Turkistan) remains always
an issue for the Chinese authorities.
Placing the aforementioned within the context of an international
community engaged in the fake battle against Islamic Terrorism
is particularly important; the aforementioned statement does not
mean that Islamic Terrorism does not exist; on the contrary, it
does. The Islamic Terrorism has however been generated by the West,
and following the Western involvement in the Islamic World. In fact,
the real father of Ossama Bin Laden is Napoleon.
The Islamic Terrorism was a well machinated reaction which as
such was projected on ignorant people by the dominant colonial
powers, France and England. It should therefore be considered as
absolutely necessary for China and Turkey to eliminate this false
Islam of the pseudo-sheikhs of Medina, Damascus, Cairo, Mecca,
Karachi and Jerusalem, and in parallel deploy a great effort for the
representation and revivification of the authentic, historical Islam
as an anti-colonial break wave among Muslims.
Viewing the totality of the related issues in the light of the melting
down of the American economic and financial power is also essential for
China and Turkey. Asia´s westernmost country has been thus far the
political, economic and military ally of America. Turkey and America
are partners in OECD and NATO amongst other international bodies.
What will be the place of both, China and Turkey, in a financially
destroyed and disintegrated world in which the world banking system
has collapsed following the bubble of the American derivatives market?
How should China and Turkey react to a new economic order that
will rise after the fall of the US $ as an international currency,
and after the return of the world community to a 100 per cent Gold
standard with the abolition of Bretton Woods Agreements?
What can Ailing America do for Turkey?
Most probably nothing but create problems.
The American establishment cannot terminate the vicious and systematic
Anglo-French Freemasonic Anti-Turkish propaganda which is the mere
prolongation of the ages old Anti-Islamic and Anti-Ottoman propaganda
of deleterious lies.
The American establishment cannot put an end to the French - Armenian
orchestration of methodic defamation of Turkey through the bias of the
otherwise inexistent but meticulously fabricated "Armenian Genocide".
The American establishment failed to figure out that the pseudo-Kurdish
PKK organization is in fact a creature of the French secret services
that target to use it in a series of abhorrent developments in the
wider area of the Middle East with victim not Turkey but many peoples
in the Middle East, and in addition, the entire world.
The American establishment - despite its pertinent approach to
issues pertaining to the former Yugoslavia - failed to see Turkey´s
potentialities in the post-Cold War era; Washington´s vision for
a Turkey in the European Union is either a matter of Anti-Turkish
treachery or consequence of striking ignorance. This does not mean that
Turkey is not suitable for the European Union; on the contrary! It
simply means that Turkey´s role in the Balkans is not important,
but Turkey´s chances to reshape the entire Middle East, the Caucasus
region and Central Asia are great.
The American establishment failed to understand that it is Turkey´s
role to demonstrate Ankara´s ability to help the Christian Aramaeans
of the Middle East, the Turkmen of Iraq, the viciously persecuted
(by the pseudo-Kurds of the gangsters Barzani and Talabani) Yazidis,
and many other ethno-religious minorities.
America failed to realize that the fake Iranian threat against Israel
would be inexistent through the much needed annexation of Iraq by
Turkey. (Again here, ´fake´ does not mean unreal, but machinated
to be a chapter of the Freemasonic conspiracy.)
America failed to comprehend that the fake story of the Iranian
nuclear weaponry would be forgotten once forever, if Turkey and
Azerbaijan merged and then supported a rebellion of Iran´s Azeris,
Turks, Turkmen, Loris, etc.
America failed to get the correct picture of the Freemasonic comedy
played in Syria and Lebanon with the farcical actors the Syrian
president and the leader of Hezbollah. A Turkish annexation of
Syria and Lebanon would terminate every nationalistic disorientation
(Pan-Arabism), religious extremism (Islamism), and policies based on
hatred and racism.
More importantly, America failed to grasp that their main enemy, Saudi
Arabia, has not spared the slightest effort to promote a revengeful
and odious Anti-American and Anti-Christian policy turning sizeable
portions of Oil income to funds for the promotion of Islamic Terrorism.
In fact, Saudi Arabia cannot exist; it must become - as it was -
a province of Turkey, and the Turkish army must be called to protect
the Oil fields and impose (as in Turkey at the time of Kemal Ataturk)
the values of Secular, Modern societies, Lights, Sciences and Reason
that were equally celebrated by Muslim philosophers of the Golden
Age of Islamic Civilization and by European philosophers of the
Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
Furthermore, the American establishment has no policy with respect to
Caucasus where Washington failed to support Georgia, and in addition,
was unsuccessful in organizing Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
and Kazakhstan as a southern counter-weight to Russia - as they could
and should be.
Even more tragically for America, Turkey, Europe, Asia and the
entire world, America proved not to have a serious global vision for
energy issues, and this risks to trigger a maelstrom in Europe, with
catastrophic consequences of all types, namely either the annexation
of Central and Western Europe by Russia or the rise of an extreme
totalitarianism in Western Europe, as means of preservation of
independence and opposition to the new (?) imperialist plans of Russia.
China - Possible threats
A spectacular collapse of the American economy would be extremely
embarrassing for the Chinese leaders who have built on the US -
Chinese bilateral relationship (despite all the discrepancies and
all anticipated limitations).
The rise of the Russian militarism (with a 24% increase in the military
expenses announced for 2009), interventionism (South Ossetia) and
imperialism (Central Asia) is certainly problematic for China as the
country depends on energy supplies and imported no less than 3.19
million bbl/day in 2007.
With 58% of China´s Oil imports coming from the Middle
East (and with the figure expected for 2015 being 70% /
http://www.iags.org/china.htm), one can automatically realize
how important this area is for China. Any military development in
the Middle East is critically important for China, but despite its
economic and diplomatic presence in the area, the ´Middle Kingdom´
has relatively limited military presence in the Middle East, small
part in arms sales, no military agreement, and no military bases. Any
mid-scale war in the area (Iran, Syria, Palestine, Israel) could have
the most dire consequences for China´s economic growth.
China - Possible challenges
Any Russian advance in Central Asia and the Caucasus region is a
challenge for China; in fact, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
is mainly viewed by China (amongst various other dimensions) as a
means to impose a balance between China and Russia in Central Asia,
as the natural resources of the area are the only feasible alternative
for China´s energy imports.
Any further American military interference in the Middle East (Iran,
Syria, Lebanon, Palestine) would be an alarming warning for China that
defends its partners at all costs (f. i. Sudan in the case of Darfur,
veto in the UN Security Council).
Any European economic, political and military expansion in the Middle
East and Northern Africa is a challenge for China´s presence in the
area; the Chinese administration is aware of European measures taken
to prevent further Chinese expansion in Africa, and certainly the
launching of the Mediterranean Union was considered by the Chinese
as a direct effort of Europe to lace Northern Africa and part of the
Middle East to its chariot.
The rise of the Islamic Terrorism and its dire consequences
for China´s Achilles´ heel, Eastern Turkistan, consists in
another challenge for Beijing. The possibility of deterioration
of the American - Chinese relationship could also mean terrorist
Saudi Arabian infiltration in Eastern Turkistan, modeled after the
Afghanistan anti-Soviet resurgence. This makes the recent incidents
in the area even more preoccupying.
China - Feasible targets
Throughout five (5) millennia of History, China never followed an
expansionist policy; only once a Chinese general reached the Caspian
Sea shores (Ban Chao at the end of the 1st century CE) at a moment of
Arsacid Parthian weakness, and due to the Silk Road trade implications.
As China was far from Europe, Beijing was the last capital to feel the
European colonial pressure; since the end of the 15th century many
empires and kingdoms had collapsed, nations exterminated and lands
invaded by the European colonial countries, namely Spain, Portugal,
Holland, France, England, Russia, Italy, Germany and Belgium. China
was the last target and victim.
China and Turkey share also another critical historical characteristic;
both countries were never colonized. Following the WW I defeat, many
provinces of the Ottoman Empire were occupied by colonial English,
French and Italian forces; however, the mainland Anatolia remained
intact and from there started Kemal Ataturk´s effort that led to
the inception of Turkey and the abolition of the Caliphate Similarly,
China was invaded by Japan, but only partly. From the free parts of
China started then the effort of the country´s liberation which was
accomplished by the communists around Mao.
With the globalization of the world economy and the rise of China
as the world´s second economic power, China finds itself without
the necessary infrastructure. Before setting targets, China must
study vast parts of the world where its presence was only diplomatic,
superficial and marginal. Beijing is truly a new comer, if compared to
Paris, London, Rome, Berlin, and even Moscow and Washington. China
has very limited know how for vast areas of the world that have
been so meticulously studied and explored by European, Russian and
American scholars.
Even as nuclear power, China was a most significant but regional
player; beyond an arc going from Northwestern Pacific and Korea as
far as Central Asia only to further encompass Indochina and Indonesia,
China had only Albania as ally.
China will never be able to become a fully accredited global power
without extensive knowledge, perception of data, and vision about
significant parts of the world, and most critically about the Middle
East. Economic relations and exploitation of natural resources are not
enough to make of a huge economy a globally significant country. The
first target for China would therefore be an accumulation of data and
a vast documentation on parts of the world that had been unknown to
China in the past.
Then, China should select a few strategic partners in several parts
of the world, and work out a global vision with them; Brazil and
Mexico in America, South Africa and Nigeria in Africa, and Turkey
in the Middle East. Avoiding colonial patterns, concerns, patchworks
and traps will be essential in this regard.
China should learn the lesson of Soviet Union´s precarious presence in
various parts of the world, Angola, Abyssinia, South Yemen and Vietnam
to name a few. Soviet Union and its successive form, Russia, failed
to locally instigate similar changes as those occurred in Eastern
Europe and in Soviet Union itself and thus remain influential in these
countries. This failure is due to absolute lack of understanding
of the colonial mechanism, which evolves around the prevention
of the nation-building process, and the educational - cultural -
socio-economic complex network of dependence.
In this regard, and due to the changes implemented by Kemal Ataturk,
particularly at the educational - academic - cultural level, Turkey
is able to help China go beyond the surface and acquire an insightful
understanding that, if correctly assessed, will be able to lead to
conclusions which will help set up a genuine Chinese Middle East
policy (and eventually a Chinese policy for the Islamic World) -
let´s say an authentically Chinese "Orientalism". This development
could trigger a genuine and colossal change in vast parts of the
Middle East, Asia and Africa.
About the threats and challenges that Turkey currently faces, as
well as the feasible targets of Turkey and the scope of the Chinese -
Turkish partnership, I will expand in a forthcoming article.
--Boundary_(ID_wxJRQVMhCQvjHxCDQj39Aw)--
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
American Chronicle
September 22, 2008
CA
Before precisely 100 years, Turkey (in fact, by then, Ottoman Empire)
and Zhongguo (China´s Chinese name, meaning ´the Middle Kingdom´)
were at the same wavelength. Both old empires were facing the onslaught
of the perfidious European colonial powers, England and France.
Both countries, Turkey and China, entered in 1908, into the last
phase of the then sociopolitical system that had survived almost
intact for many long centuries.
More importantly, China and Turkey represented two vast cultural
regions whereby the central authority had not undergone the necessary
adaptation into historical developments - even worse: the central
authority had failed to lead these (or other) developments (as in both
cases the central authority had been used to for several millennia).
Common Experience and Historical Evolution
In 1908, Turkey entered the phase of the Young Turks (Genc Turkler)
administration, ensured by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP
/ in Turkish: Ä°ttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti); and China attested the
rise of the Puyi, last king, to power.
The two vast countries were targeted by the treacherous, colonial
powers, England and France. Acting similarly in the Western and
Eastern confines of a continent that suffered greatly because of their
vicious and heinous activities, England and France managed to fool
other European countries and engage them in a colonial competition
that would finally turn to their exclusive profit.
Thus, China had to confront not only the French (already in control
in Indochina) and the English (in control in India) but also Russia
(that expanded in Far East earlier, and later in Central Asia, but
defeated by Japan in 1905), Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and
consequently the United States (then in control in the Philippines)
and East Asia´s foremost military power, Japan.
As China was in decay, the Chinese throne had lost contact with the
world affairs; coming out of a greater interaction with the European
powers (that have been permanently in discord down to our day),
the Ottoman Empire managed to strike a deal of alliance with Austria
-Hungary and Germany, the two central European powers that were then in
alliance with Italy. Still this was not enough as the Ottoman Empire
had been weakened by the same treacherous and pernicious practices
of England and France, and had lost all its African provinces except
Libya (invaded by Italy in 1911). The colonial diplomacies had targeted
the Ottoman and the Persian Empires for several centuries before the
Ottoman collapse in the aftermath of WW I.
Using successively different countries and peoples, the Anglo-French
diplomacy had engulfed the Ottoman Empire into ceaseless wars against
Austria - Hungary, Russia, and Persia, and deliberately instigated
rebellions of various ethno-religious groups to whom they were
promising all they wished in order to mobilize them against their
own country, namely the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, England and
France managed always that none of the neighboring states invaded or
controlled any geo-strategically critical part of the Ottoman Empire;
their concern with Russia was great as the risk of a Russian arrival
at Mosul was high.
The same, immoral and inhuman practices were pursued against the
Middle Kingdom (China); the two Opium Wars reveal the monstrosity of
the Anglo-French who managed to involve tsarist expansionist Russia
and ignorant, gullible America in their criminal plans, and finally
enroll them as parties of the Tianjin Treaty (1858). What was at stake
was the entire Chinese empire which was forced to open more ports and
legalize the opium trade, with nefarious, suicidal results of course.
The supposedly civilized colonial countries that pretended to be so
genuinely interested in science, knowledge, and Lights, sent armies
to loot and burn down Xiyang lou, the Old Summer Palace complex in
the Chinese capital, which was a real temple of Art.
With the parallel past experience, the same historical enemies, and
similar great potentialities in the future, the two countries must
closely examine how concerted action, multifaceted cooperation and
strategic alliance will guarantee for both great perspectives in the
rising multi-polar world.
China´s and Turkey´s Common Perspectives
An evaluation of the two countries´ common perspectives hinges on an
enumeration of existing threats and challenges, feasible targets, and
possibilities for both countries to envision themselves as pillars of
a vast continental community of countries devoid of foreign involvement
and interference.
We have to place the aforementioned comparisons within the context of
a world exiting from an uni-polar system whereby the main country -
pole (the United States) failed to maintain its supremacy and control,
and is currently exposed to a disastrous economic - monetary collapse.
In fact, in 2008, several countries have risen to importance and
are currently competing for an influential role in the shaping of
the destiny of the Mankind; USA, China, Japan, Russia, and India keep
monitoring the process of formation of a huge union of states in Europe
whereby prevail (and at times cancel one another) several approaches
to what a European Union should or can be. For this reason we don´t
refer here to the leading Western European countries (Germany, France,
England and Italy) separately. Next to the aforementioned, Brazil and
Mexico try to become a pole of Latin American influence and global
aspiration. Next to them, Turkey has long kept an impossible balance
between opposite interests, namely becoming the leading force of the
Islamic World or adhering to the (under construction) European Union.
In this regard, the fact that Asia - with more than 1.2 billion Muslims
- is the Islamic continent par excellence concerns both Turkey and
China greatly. Controlling a large part of them will make of Turkey
de facto one of the leading forces of the world, thus canceling the
historical defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
Suffice it that Turkey does not accept European concepts projected
onto the system of Islamic terrorism with the purpose of destroying
Islam itself totally. On the other hand, containing and integrating
its sizeable Muslim population (in Eastern Turkistan) remains always
an issue for the Chinese authorities.
Placing the aforementioned within the context of an international
community engaged in the fake battle against Islamic Terrorism
is particularly important; the aforementioned statement does not
mean that Islamic Terrorism does not exist; on the contrary, it
does. The Islamic Terrorism has however been generated by the West,
and following the Western involvement in the Islamic World. In fact,
the real father of Ossama Bin Laden is Napoleon.
The Islamic Terrorism was a well machinated reaction which as
such was projected on ignorant people by the dominant colonial
powers, France and England. It should therefore be considered as
absolutely necessary for China and Turkey to eliminate this false
Islam of the pseudo-sheikhs of Medina, Damascus, Cairo, Mecca,
Karachi and Jerusalem, and in parallel deploy a great effort for the
representation and revivification of the authentic, historical Islam
as an anti-colonial break wave among Muslims.
Viewing the totality of the related issues in the light of the melting
down of the American economic and financial power is also essential for
China and Turkey. Asia´s westernmost country has been thus far the
political, economic and military ally of America. Turkey and America
are partners in OECD and NATO amongst other international bodies.
What will be the place of both, China and Turkey, in a financially
destroyed and disintegrated world in which the world banking system
has collapsed following the bubble of the American derivatives market?
How should China and Turkey react to a new economic order that
will rise after the fall of the US $ as an international currency,
and after the return of the world community to a 100 per cent Gold
standard with the abolition of Bretton Woods Agreements?
What can Ailing America do for Turkey?
Most probably nothing but create problems.
The American establishment cannot terminate the vicious and systematic
Anglo-French Freemasonic Anti-Turkish propaganda which is the mere
prolongation of the ages old Anti-Islamic and Anti-Ottoman propaganda
of deleterious lies.
The American establishment cannot put an end to the French - Armenian
orchestration of methodic defamation of Turkey through the bias of the
otherwise inexistent but meticulously fabricated "Armenian Genocide".
The American establishment failed to figure out that the pseudo-Kurdish
PKK organization is in fact a creature of the French secret services
that target to use it in a series of abhorrent developments in the
wider area of the Middle East with victim not Turkey but many peoples
in the Middle East, and in addition, the entire world.
The American establishment - despite its pertinent approach to
issues pertaining to the former Yugoslavia - failed to see Turkey´s
potentialities in the post-Cold War era; Washington´s vision for
a Turkey in the European Union is either a matter of Anti-Turkish
treachery or consequence of striking ignorance. This does not mean that
Turkey is not suitable for the European Union; on the contrary! It
simply means that Turkey´s role in the Balkans is not important,
but Turkey´s chances to reshape the entire Middle East, the Caucasus
region and Central Asia are great.
The American establishment failed to understand that it is Turkey´s
role to demonstrate Ankara´s ability to help the Christian Aramaeans
of the Middle East, the Turkmen of Iraq, the viciously persecuted
(by the pseudo-Kurds of the gangsters Barzani and Talabani) Yazidis,
and many other ethno-religious minorities.
America failed to realize that the fake Iranian threat against Israel
would be inexistent through the much needed annexation of Iraq by
Turkey. (Again here, ´fake´ does not mean unreal, but machinated
to be a chapter of the Freemasonic conspiracy.)
America failed to comprehend that the fake story of the Iranian
nuclear weaponry would be forgotten once forever, if Turkey and
Azerbaijan merged and then supported a rebellion of Iran´s Azeris,
Turks, Turkmen, Loris, etc.
America failed to get the correct picture of the Freemasonic comedy
played in Syria and Lebanon with the farcical actors the Syrian
president and the leader of Hezbollah. A Turkish annexation of
Syria and Lebanon would terminate every nationalistic disorientation
(Pan-Arabism), religious extremism (Islamism), and policies based on
hatred and racism.
More importantly, America failed to grasp that their main enemy, Saudi
Arabia, has not spared the slightest effort to promote a revengeful
and odious Anti-American and Anti-Christian policy turning sizeable
portions of Oil income to funds for the promotion of Islamic Terrorism.
In fact, Saudi Arabia cannot exist; it must become - as it was -
a province of Turkey, and the Turkish army must be called to protect
the Oil fields and impose (as in Turkey at the time of Kemal Ataturk)
the values of Secular, Modern societies, Lights, Sciences and Reason
that were equally celebrated by Muslim philosophers of the Golden
Age of Islamic Civilization and by European philosophers of the
Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
Furthermore, the American establishment has no policy with respect to
Caucasus where Washington failed to support Georgia, and in addition,
was unsuccessful in organizing Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
and Kazakhstan as a southern counter-weight to Russia - as they could
and should be.
Even more tragically for America, Turkey, Europe, Asia and the
entire world, America proved not to have a serious global vision for
energy issues, and this risks to trigger a maelstrom in Europe, with
catastrophic consequences of all types, namely either the annexation
of Central and Western Europe by Russia or the rise of an extreme
totalitarianism in Western Europe, as means of preservation of
independence and opposition to the new (?) imperialist plans of Russia.
China - Possible threats
A spectacular collapse of the American economy would be extremely
embarrassing for the Chinese leaders who have built on the US -
Chinese bilateral relationship (despite all the discrepancies and
all anticipated limitations).
The rise of the Russian militarism (with a 24% increase in the military
expenses announced for 2009), interventionism (South Ossetia) and
imperialism (Central Asia) is certainly problematic for China as the
country depends on energy supplies and imported no less than 3.19
million bbl/day in 2007.
With 58% of China´s Oil imports coming from the Middle
East (and with the figure expected for 2015 being 70% /
http://www.iags.org/china.htm), one can automatically realize
how important this area is for China. Any military development in
the Middle East is critically important for China, but despite its
economic and diplomatic presence in the area, the ´Middle Kingdom´
has relatively limited military presence in the Middle East, small
part in arms sales, no military agreement, and no military bases. Any
mid-scale war in the area (Iran, Syria, Palestine, Israel) could have
the most dire consequences for China´s economic growth.
China - Possible challenges
Any Russian advance in Central Asia and the Caucasus region is a
challenge for China; in fact, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
is mainly viewed by China (amongst various other dimensions) as a
means to impose a balance between China and Russia in Central Asia,
as the natural resources of the area are the only feasible alternative
for China´s energy imports.
Any further American military interference in the Middle East (Iran,
Syria, Lebanon, Palestine) would be an alarming warning for China that
defends its partners at all costs (f. i. Sudan in the case of Darfur,
veto in the UN Security Council).
Any European economic, political and military expansion in the Middle
East and Northern Africa is a challenge for China´s presence in the
area; the Chinese administration is aware of European measures taken
to prevent further Chinese expansion in Africa, and certainly the
launching of the Mediterranean Union was considered by the Chinese
as a direct effort of Europe to lace Northern Africa and part of the
Middle East to its chariot.
The rise of the Islamic Terrorism and its dire consequences
for China´s Achilles´ heel, Eastern Turkistan, consists in
another challenge for Beijing. The possibility of deterioration
of the American - Chinese relationship could also mean terrorist
Saudi Arabian infiltration in Eastern Turkistan, modeled after the
Afghanistan anti-Soviet resurgence. This makes the recent incidents
in the area even more preoccupying.
China - Feasible targets
Throughout five (5) millennia of History, China never followed an
expansionist policy; only once a Chinese general reached the Caspian
Sea shores (Ban Chao at the end of the 1st century CE) at a moment of
Arsacid Parthian weakness, and due to the Silk Road trade implications.
As China was far from Europe, Beijing was the last capital to feel the
European colonial pressure; since the end of the 15th century many
empires and kingdoms had collapsed, nations exterminated and lands
invaded by the European colonial countries, namely Spain, Portugal,
Holland, France, England, Russia, Italy, Germany and Belgium. China
was the last target and victim.
China and Turkey share also another critical historical characteristic;
both countries were never colonized. Following the WW I defeat, many
provinces of the Ottoman Empire were occupied by colonial English,
French and Italian forces; however, the mainland Anatolia remained
intact and from there started Kemal Ataturk´s effort that led to
the inception of Turkey and the abolition of the Caliphate Similarly,
China was invaded by Japan, but only partly. From the free parts of
China started then the effort of the country´s liberation which was
accomplished by the communists around Mao.
With the globalization of the world economy and the rise of China
as the world´s second economic power, China finds itself without
the necessary infrastructure. Before setting targets, China must
study vast parts of the world where its presence was only diplomatic,
superficial and marginal. Beijing is truly a new comer, if compared to
Paris, London, Rome, Berlin, and even Moscow and Washington. China
has very limited know how for vast areas of the world that have
been so meticulously studied and explored by European, Russian and
American scholars.
Even as nuclear power, China was a most significant but regional
player; beyond an arc going from Northwestern Pacific and Korea as
far as Central Asia only to further encompass Indochina and Indonesia,
China had only Albania as ally.
China will never be able to become a fully accredited global power
without extensive knowledge, perception of data, and vision about
significant parts of the world, and most critically about the Middle
East. Economic relations and exploitation of natural resources are not
enough to make of a huge economy a globally significant country. The
first target for China would therefore be an accumulation of data and
a vast documentation on parts of the world that had been unknown to
China in the past.
Then, China should select a few strategic partners in several parts
of the world, and work out a global vision with them; Brazil and
Mexico in America, South Africa and Nigeria in Africa, and Turkey
in the Middle East. Avoiding colonial patterns, concerns, patchworks
and traps will be essential in this regard.
China should learn the lesson of Soviet Union´s precarious presence in
various parts of the world, Angola, Abyssinia, South Yemen and Vietnam
to name a few. Soviet Union and its successive form, Russia, failed
to locally instigate similar changes as those occurred in Eastern
Europe and in Soviet Union itself and thus remain influential in these
countries. This failure is due to absolute lack of understanding
of the colonial mechanism, which evolves around the prevention
of the nation-building process, and the educational - cultural -
socio-economic complex network of dependence.
In this regard, and due to the changes implemented by Kemal Ataturk,
particularly at the educational - academic - cultural level, Turkey
is able to help China go beyond the surface and acquire an insightful
understanding that, if correctly assessed, will be able to lead to
conclusions which will help set up a genuine Chinese Middle East
policy (and eventually a Chinese policy for the Islamic World) -
let´s say an authentically Chinese "Orientalism". This development
could trigger a genuine and colossal change in vast parts of the
Middle East, Asia and Africa.
About the threats and challenges that Turkey currently faces, as
well as the feasible targets of Turkey and the scope of the Chinese -
Turkish partnership, I will expand in a forthcoming article.
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress