Baghdad pact a boost for Beijing
China has an unusual new ally to protect its interests in the Middle East.
‘‘We are at their service,’’ said Abu Firqan, a leader of Iraq’s most powerful Shia militia in its most notorious heartland, the working-class neighbourhood of Sadr City, Baghdad.
Abu Firqan fought the West for years, and boasts that his son was the first Shia volunteer to be killed by American troops, in 2004. Now he says he is more concerned about schools and hospitals – and he wants China to build them.
‘‘We are ready to protect the Chinese not only in Sadr City, but across Iraq,’’ he said.
His proposed alliance is not as fantastical as it might seem. Prime Minister Mustafa alKadhimi is promoting an economic alliance with China, and has announced investments which, if fulfilled, will transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
But the plans are vague, and economists, pointing to the mixed results of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative, say Kadhimi’s announcements are more a public relations fig leaf to sweeten popular acceptance of the deeply corrupt political establishment’s growing ties with Chinese oil companies.
Kadhimi’s office said in December, to much fanfare, that contracts had been awarded to 15 Chinese companies for the construction of 1000 schools across the country. This followed a similar deal earlier in the year for Chinese companies to build 1000 new clinics, as well as an airport in the southern city of Nasiriyah.
There is also talk of redeveloping Sadr City, involving the building of 90,000 homes.
Kadhimi has said Iraq will pay in oil – but there is a strong charitable element, according to Chinese Communist Party newspaper the Global Times. ‘‘China’s investment is out of humanitarian aid,’’ it quoted Chen Xianzhong, a Chinese businessman working in Iraq, as saying. ‘‘Security expenses are huge amid lingering political instability, and the profits for Chinese state-owned companies are slim.’’
Moqtada al-Sadr, head of the Sadrist movement, is leading negotiations. He was once the US’ chief public enemy in Iraq, fighting American and British troops in the years after the 2003 invasion. Sadr City was his stronghold.
Now Sadr claims to be opposed to Iran as much as to the US, and this ‘‘third way’’ leads to China, which is increasing its investments across the Middle East.
This is driven by China’s need for oil, and by another key strategy – portraying itself as a trading hegemon rather than a military one.
China imports 30 per cent of Iraq’s oil and, as Western companies such as Exxon Mobil withdraw, its own oil counterparts are moving in.
BP announced last year that it would introduce the state-owned PetroChina as a joint venture partner in drilling the Rumaila oilfield in southern Iraq, one of the world’s largest.
For Iraqis uninterested in geopolitics but facing electricity and water shortages, any new investment is welcome.
Activists elsewhere protest China’s treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority, but in Baghdad there are protests demanding closer links with Beijing, stressing its historical ties with the Arab world along the Silk Road. ‘‘We want China to build electricity plants, roads, hospitals,’’ said Hussein Barood, 52, as he stood holding placards with the Iraqi and Chinese flags next to the River Tigris last week.
Previous proposals to redevelop Sadr City have come to nothing. Some suspect that the Chinese proposals will go the same way, but Abu Firqan remains resolutely optimistic.
‘‘This will be a gift from the Chinese government,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m very happy.’’