Past Grievances Draw China and Iraq Closer Together

Despite repeated allusions to the old Silk Road, Iraq and China do not really share a long history. Nevertheless, in the post-Saddam Hussein era, the relationship between the two states has flourished, particularly through the oil industry. Since then, the two countries have grown closer and managed to build a more integrated relationship, leaving them interdependent in many areas today. China relies on Iraq, which supplies 10 per cent of its oil, for energy. This figure is set to increase further in the future. Meanwhile, Iraq has become increasingly reliant on China for goods, technologies, and high-tech gadgets. As Kishore Mahbubani emphasized in a lecture he presented at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, the core of Chinese diplomatic and economic strategy is to make others dependent on Beijing.[1] but the relationship has not been limited to production industry. As a part of its cultural ‘going out strategy’, China has invested in improving its cultural diplomacy through the creation of cultural institutes — Mandarin language Confucius classrooms, research centers, party-to-party relationships, as well as increasing the number of Iraqi students in China and cultivating future friends. Iraq for its part wants to purchase affordable priced commodities for a highly consumeristic population and increase its return on oil.

The two countries see themselves as part of the Global South, a geopolitical space that China aims to lead, through its economic position coupled with an astute use of finances flowing from its mercantilist policies, to become the leading trading partner and a significant investor in this space. Moreover, the current Chinese leaders and Iraqi political elites, especially the Shi’a, share a normative dimension toward the global power structure, namely through mourning. Hence, in addition to oil, infrastructure, goods, technologies, and soft power, both countries are grieving against the current global structure, albeit from different backgrounds. This piece argues that imagining oneself and the Other (the West) through grief is at the heart of the way both the Chinese and the Iraqi Shi’a relate to the world. For the Chinese, it is the Century of Humiliation,[2] and for the Iraqi Shi’a, it is victimhood.[3]

Century of Humiliation

The century of humiliation — a period between 1839 and 1949 when China’s government lost control over large portions of its territory at the hands of foreigners — is a key component of modern China’s founding narrative. This narrative is thought by many Chinese today to provide historical lessons that are considered indicative of how strong Western powers tend to behave toward China. The century of humiliation provides “frames of reference”, helping to interpret signals and information. As Acemoglu and Jackson detail, social normsregulate many areas of human interaction and create self-reinforcing (stable) patterns of behaviour.[4]

For China to overcome humiliation, it has to rejuvenate and gradually become a superpower, as was emphatically expressed through the Made in China 2025 program and others.[5] At their core, these documents aim to transform China into a “manufacturing superpower,” set the standards for domestic stability, and avoid a repeat of the Soviet Union’s collapse. 

In his speech announcing the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong famously proclaimed, “Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. We have stood up.”[6] This resulted in the emergence of China’s mantra of “Never Again”, a collective trauma at the heart of China’s modern-day foreign policy.[7]

The feeling of humiliation asserts victimhood. Similar to humiliation, asserting real or perceived victimhood is a ploy used to justify one’s actions.[8] This close relationship between humiliation and victimhood unites the current Chinese elites and Iraqi Shi’i elites.

Shi’i Victimhood

Harith Hasan explains how the oppressive and discriminatory policies of Saddam Hussein’s regime resulted in the construction of a Shi’i narrative of victimhood.[9] In post-Saddam Iraq, as persecuted and exiled Shi’i elites’ gained power, they built a narrative on victimhood that shaped the genesis of the new Iraqi state.[10]

The Iraqi Shi’i elite narratives amalgamate two Shi’a victimhood narratives. One is historical and dates back to the early days of the emergence of the Shi’a as a sect, i.e., “the Suffering of Āl al-Bayt.”[11] The other is relatively new; it emerged in Iraq after the establishment of the modern state in the early twenties. However, the building of the narrative comes much later. The first detailed documentary evidence of this Shi’i victimhood narrative, according to Abbas,[12] is Hassan Al-Allawi, in his book Ash-Shī’a wa ad-Dawla al-Qawamiyya Fīal-’Irāq (The Shi’a and the Pan-Arabist State in Iraq).[13] The two narratives feed into and fuel each other.

When the Iraqi Shi’a Declaration was issued in early 2002,[14] signed by 200 Shi’iactivists,[15] it stated that the Shi’a are the majority of the Iraqi people. It argued that constitutional civil rights have been deliberately confiscated by the ruling elites in Iraq since the formation of the modern state.

The Shi’a victimhood narrative states that the structure of the Iraqi state of politics has to change in order to end Shi’a marginalization, and by calling them the majority, it also hints at their democratic right to rule. As Hassan Allawi traces the genealogy of this marginalization to the combination of Percy Cox as the first British High Commissioner in a British-dominated Iraq and Abdul-Rahman al-Naqib, the first Iraqi, and Sunni, prime minister whose government was established in late October 1920, it indicates that colonial rule deprived the Iraqi Shi’a from their democratic rights. Chinese and Iraqi Shi’a narratives rhyme in many ways. Through blaming the West for their humiliation and victimhood, for not exercising their rights, and for not being in power, in the case of the Iraqi Shi’a, or for reshaping their history, in the case of China.

Two figures, on both sides, are exemplifying these more than others, namely Xi Jinping and Adil Abdul-Mahdi. Both seethe West as a challenge to their rules. According to Jinping,[16] China’s destiny is the realization of the Chinese Dream. This puts US-China competition and alleged US misconduct at the center of its narrative. It claims that “since the end of the Second World War, controlling China has become an important component of the United States’ global strategy.” Rhyming with that, the former prime minister of Iraq, Abdul-Mahdi,[17] argues that there is a desire among Americans, Israelis, and others to weaken Iraq, as demonstrated by the Tishreen demonstrations. He claims that when the resistance forces, whom the US regards as terrorists, were becoming more powerful, it was decided to weaken them by inciting violence and chaos among Shi’a and Iraqis alike. This demonstrates how the Chinese and Iraqi ruling classes are drawn to one another, not just because of economics, but also because of their shared sorrows, historical perspectives, and understanding of the world's power systems.

Conclusions

As the Iraq and China relationship rapidly expands in every area, there is little space to focus on shared narratives and worldviews. As the elites on both sides increasingly interact and exchange visits, history, common threats, narratives are emerging. With both sides are situated in the Global South, they share commonalities toward dominant [Western] global powers. Both the Chinese and Iraqi Shi’a are strongly influenced by their political and historical memories. The past is serving the present and is part of the future, as Mao stresses. This is also true for the Shi’a, through their daily experience of their past through rituals, religious practices, and narratives. Given the formative centrality of victimization and humiliation to China and the Shi’a and their shared adversary in the shape of Washington, there is ample opportunity for both parties to contemplate the other. Understanding the Chinese century of humiliation is crucial to comprehending its behaviour, and this also holds true for the Iraqi Shi’a, particularly given how social media and rivalry between the US and Iraqi militias perpetuate the victimhood narrative in modern times. As much as Iraq’s Shi’a need to move past the sense of victimhood, the new multipolar world could end up revitalizing and developing the narrative.

[1] “ECSSR Hosts a Lecture on Prospects for US-China Relations” Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, 14/6/2024, accessed on 7/8/2024 at: https://acr.ps/1L9zP1o

[2] Alison A. Kaufman, “Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on “China‟s Narratives Regarding National Security Policy”: “The “Century of Humiliation” and China’s National Narratives,” USCC, 10/3/2011, accessed on 14/6/2024, at: https://acr.ps/1L9zOFO

[3] Akeel Abbas, “The Sectarian Imagining of the 1920 Revolution and the Construction of a Shi'i Victimization Narrative,” AlMuntaqa, vol. 4, no. 1 (September/ October 2021), pp. 23-38.

[4] Daron Acemoglu & Matthew O. Jackson, “History, Expectations, and Leadership in the Evolution of Social Norms,” The Review of Economic Studies, vol. 82, no. 2 (291) (April 2015), pp. 423-456.

[5] Elsa B. Kania, “Made in China 2025, Explained: A Deep Dive into China’s Techno-Strategic Ambitions for 2025 and Beyond,” The Diplomat, 1/2/2019 accessed on 14/6/2024 at: https://acr.ps/1L9zODh

[6] Mark Metcalf, “The National Humiliation Narrative: Dealing with the Present by Fixating on the Past,” Association for Asian Studies, vol. 25, no. 2: Teaching Asia’s Giants: China (Fall 2020).

[7] Mark Tischler, “China’s ‘Never Again’ Mentality” The Diplomat, 18/8/2020 accessed on 14/6/2024 at: https://acr.ps/1L9zOil

[8] Arland Jacobson, “The Role of Humiliation in International Conflict,” Northern Plains Ethics (Fall 2013), pp. 65-94.

[9] Harith Hasan Al-Qarawee, “Iraq’s Sectarian Crisis: A Legacy of Exclusion,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 23/4/2014, accessed on 14/6/2024, at: https://acr.ps/1L9zOs2

[10] Oula Kadhum, “The Transnational Politics of Iraq’s Shia Diaspora,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1/3/2018, accessed on 14/6/2024, at: https://acr.ps/1L9zOu7

[11] Yassin al-Haj Saleh, “The Just Oppressors: Middle Eastern Victimhood Narratives and New Imagined Communities,” Aljumhuriya, 7/9/2015, accessed on 14/6/2024, at: https://acr.ps/1L9zOQS

[12] Abbas.

[13] Hassan Alawi, ash-Shīʿa wa ad-Dawla al-Qawamiyya Fī al-'Irāq (France: CEDI Publications, 1989).

[14]“The Iraqi Shi’a Declaration,” Al Jazeera Net, 3/10/2004, accessed on 14/6/2024 at: https://acr.ps/1L9zP4g [In Arabic]

[15] “For the First Time, Behind the Scenes of The Iraqi Shi’a Declaration” Ammar Taqi channel, YouTube, accessed on 14/6/2024 at: https://acr.ps/1L9zOJk [in Arabic]

[16] Steve Tsang & Olivia Cheung, The Political Thought of Xi Jinping (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024).

[17] Radwan Mortada, “Iraq's Ex-PM Adil Abdul-Mahdi: 'The US doesn't Defeat Terror, it Only Tries to Balance it,” The Cradle, 9/6/2023 accessed on 14/6/2024 at: https://thecradle.co/articles-id/201