Confident mainland offers role model for divided Arab world

Professor Kamel Abu Jaber, Jordan's minister of foreign affairs from 1991 to 1993 and a visiting scholar at Hong Kong Baptist University, has long contemplated why China is 'on its feet' while the Arab world is 'flat on its face'.

The former Middle East peace negotiator views the subject through the lens of an Arab who is an Orthodox Christian and who considers himself 'a friendly critic' of both the west and the Arab world.

'While China is on its feet standing eye to eye with the rest of the world, the Arab world is prostrate, flat on its face, with the colonial western armies that seemingly left the area after the second world war now returning, by invitation of some of the leaders, to establish bases in the region,' said Professor Abu Jaber, 75. He is president of Jordan's Institute for Middle Eastern Studies and has just taught two semesters at Baptist University on the culture, politics and history of the Middle East.

He said control over the 'soul, resources and land mass' of the Middle East had been in contention between east and west since at least the 5th century BC, when the Persians and Greeks fought a series of epic battles. Conflicts ensued through the medieval crusades and into the modern era, when oil raised the stakes.

'The Arabs have always been under the direct and immediate scrutiny of the western powers. This is a big difference. China has been blessed by being so far away,' Professor Abu Jaber said.

He said that China had been able to build a wall around itself to keep invaders and others out while 'there was no way on earth the Arabs could isolate themselves'. Isolation had given China a chance to maintain a unified culture and language, which had not been the case with the Arabs.