BRICS membership for Palestine?, Interview with Pan Guang, Chinese EV production in Algeria, Chinese language teachers in Saudi
Palestinians Will Apply to Join Russia-China Group: Ambassador - Newsweek. It’s being reported in several sources this week that Palestine has been invited to join BRICS. As far as I’ve seen so far, all the reporting is coming from the same Russian outlet, and the source is the Palestinian ambassador to Moscow. Not sure what to make of this yet - I’m quite a BRICS skeptic so my initial impulse is to see this as political pageantry, but am open to explanations of why that’s wrong.
Palestinian Ambassador to Russia Abdel Hafiz Nofal has said his state will apply to join the BRICS intergovernmental organization – a group which also includes Russia and China.
Russian state news outlet TASS reported that the ambassador made the announcement during a press conference, and said an application to join BRICS would be submitted after the group's Kazan summit in October.
"After our first participation in the summit we will send an application for joining this association. Russian President Vladimir Putin promised that one session would be fully devoted to Palestine. We have the most positive expectations from this summit," he was reported to have said.
Middle East ‘the best place’ for China and US to cooperate, observer says - South China Morning Post. This is an interview with Pan Guang, who I met in Shanghai several years ago. I found him to be an astute analyst of Middle Eastern affairs and was also great to talk with about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization - he was the founding director of the SCO Studies Center in Shanghai. A few relevant exchanges from the interview:
How do you view China’s role in conflict mediation in the Middle East?
China’s current attitude towards Israel and Palestine is basically a two-state solution. But this fundamental solution to the issues of Palestine, Israel and the Jews has not been achieved even by the United Nations for so many years. China can participate in [the peace process] but it may not be able to take the lead.
In terms of promoting peace and negotiations in the Middle East, we have been relatively successful on [the rapprochement between] Iran and Saudi Arabia ... China can play a role in many issues in the Middle East – for example ... we can also play a role on the two factions in Yemen.
China recently hosted rival Palestinian factions for peace talks and they signed the Beijing Declaration on ending their division. How will the recent attacks in Iran and Lebanon affect the reconciliation process?
The recent attacks are a blow to the Beijing Declaration. But to be honest, it remains to be seen how practical a result the declaration will achieve. The Palestinian factions often have conflicts again after they finish [peace] talks. I am not optimistic about whether Fatah can take the lead well and unite the factions, but I think it is a good start.
It is very difficult to promote peace and negotiations and it will take a long time. It is not an easy task but it is good that China has started the process.
Will China exert influence on Iran to prevent further conflicts in the Middle East? Do you think China and Iran can coordinate on the Palestine-Israel issue?
[China] can’t play much role on Iran. It’s impossible to expect Iran to play a role in the Palestine-Israel issue. It firmly supports Palestine and even supports Hamas, and believes that the establishment of Israel was a mistake. But Iran does not want to have a direct conflict with Israel.
In the past few years there has been talk of whether China is trying to overtake the US in the region. What’s your take on this? Will Beijing’s regional policy and rivalry with the US change after the Israel-Gaza war?
Since the Arab spring in 2011, China’s policy [in the Middle East] has actually been greatly adjusted. One adjustment is to further strengthen economic cooperation, and after the Belt and Road Initiative was proposed it became a dominant policy of China’s in the Middle East.
We first signed the belt and road cooperation agreement with all Arab countries, and also with Israel, Iran and Turkey.
China’s economic cooperation [with them] developed very rapidly after this. It used to be mainly on trade and oil ... but now China is increasingly involved in building infrastructure. The construction of buildings, bridges, roads and a capital ... is in full swing.
The second point is that China is now paying more attention to playing a political and security role in the Middle East. A very important reason here is to protect the safety of our overseas citizens. We evacuated more than 36,000 people during the Libyan conflict.
We increasingly realised that it is not enough to passively protect overseas Chinese – we must actively participate. We took part in the United Nations’ anti-piracy campaign and sent three warships ... to protect ships from China and all over the world. Then after a while ... we established a supply base [in Djibouti]. The West was very unsettled at first, but what’s to be nervous about? The US, France and Japan all have bases there, so why can’t China have one? Now they are used to it.
So I think China’s current policy is not only about economic cooperation and the Belt and Road Initiative, but also counterterrorism, anti-piracy and peacekeeping.
In this regard, I think China is very different from 10 years ago. It has warships, soldiers and peacekeeping forces. China has 1,000 peacekeepers in southern Lebanon. They are mainly engineers and medical troops, but they play a big role which demonstrates China’s real involvement in security and anti-terrorism cooperation [in the region].
Of course, we can also try our best to participate in conflict mediation.
My point of view is clear: if China and the United States want to cooperate, the Middle East is the best place. China and the US cannot cooperate in the Pacific, the East China Sea or the South China Sea. But they can in the Middle East because China and the US’ basic policy in the region is the same – that is, Palestine and Israel as two states, counterterrorism and anti-piracy.
China and the US do not have direct conflicts of interest in the Middle East, in Saudi Arabia or Iran. There has been no major change in the views of China and the US on the Middle East after October 7.
China, Africa eye enhanced cooperation in NEVs - Global Times. This story has Chinese Ambassador to Algeria Li Jian announcing Chinese auto companies JAC, Chery and Geely will be producing cars in Algeria for domestic consumption as well as part of their expansion into other African markets. There isn’t much detail about plans for Algeria here, but this article goes into more depth:
Chery officials shared in November 2023 that they plan to establish a plant in Bordj Bou Arreridji. This facility will have a preliminary production capacity of 24,000 units per year. In the next three years, Chery will ramp up the production capacity to 100,000 vehicles per year. As a result, the factory will also export cars to other North African countries.
Geely’s plans in Algeria were disclosed by its local partner Sovidem. The company’s GM reported that the biggest private-owned Chinese automaker plans to invest 200 million USD to build an automotive assembly plant in Algeria. Its initial production capacity will reach 50,000 units per year. The Geely Algeria plant will begin operating in 2026. The first model to roll off the production line is the Geely GX3 Pro (Geely Vision X3).
MoE holds introductory meeting for Chinese teachers - Saudi Gazette. A short article about the new cohort of Chinese language teachers in Saudi Arabia:
The Ministry of Education organized an introductory meeting for male and female teachers, who came from China, as part of an integrated program to inform them about their tasks while teaching Mandarin language during the current academic year.
This comes within the framework of enhancing the teaching of the Chinese language in public schools, which reflects the depth of educational and cultural cooperation between the Kingdom and China, the Ministry of Education said in a statement.
The activities of the week-long introductory meeting included organizing a group of workshops to introduce new teachers to the education system in the Kingdom; organizing field visits to the most important cultural and civilizational landmarks, in addition to special events to introduce Saudi culture in cooperation with the national project ‘Salam for Cultural Communication,” in addition to multiple tourist trips.