In the long run, it seems that in
Asia the most dynamic
nucleus of global capitalism, especially from China, will be established, with
capitalism controlled by a tentacular party-state that learned lessons from the
failure of Soviet state
capitalism. This dynamic depends greatly
on the incorporation of Europe and has benefited from the evident decay of the
United States which, in turn, had surpassed Europe after World War II.
This change is
being made by building China's political and business networks and by new inequalities and strategically defensive US wars based on their apparent military
supremacy. What human costs will these
changes have?
Summary
1 - Asia, once
cradle of civilization, reassumes itself as the new center of the world
1.1 - The predominance
of Europe through colonization and capitalism decays after 1945
1.2 - Europe, again an Asian peninsula?
2 - Demographic
profile of Asian geopolitical areas
2.1
- Demographic trends in the Near and Middle East
0000000000 ----- 0000000000
1 - Asia, once cradle of civilization, reassumes itself as
the new center of the world
Asia hosted the
cradle of human civilization, after the first men left Africa, from the Rift
Valley, which is believed to be around 170000 BCE (Before the Common Era[1]). This trip corresponded to the installation in Mesopotamia, Arabia and the
Iranian plateau about 146000 BCE. Human occupation of northern
India will have occurred around 125,000 years of BCE and that of China and
Indochina about 30,000 years later (95000 BCE).
Although geographically close to Mesopotamia, the human presence will only
have occurred around 38000 BCE in areas such as the Caucasus, the Balkans or Southern
Italy; at a time when the humans of Indochina or Southern
China certainly arrived in Australia, taking advantage of the level of sea
water, much lower than it is today and favouring the passages.
The expansion throughout Europe continued, with humans arriving in the
Iberian Peninsula, Southern Britain and Denmark in 29000 BCE; as well as in Siberia. As far as Europe was concerned, by the time of 18000
BCE, it all incorporated Paleolithic colonies of humans, except Scotland and
Scandinavia; by this time, the humans crossed the Strait of Bering,
beginning the colonization of the American continent.
It was in Asia that the domestic species of fruit, cereals, leguminous
plants and vegetables were first domesticated which allowed Man to become less
dependent on hunting, catching fish and collecting fruit here and there,
depending on the luck he had while wandering in space. These first
steps towards sedentarization and the emergence of agriculture first appeared
independently in the so-called Fertile Crescent - then much more humid than
today - and in China.
The humans who settled in these two Asian regions were no smarter than their
counterparts who in the meantime were spreading across the globe. Its advantages were provided by the climate that offered them autumn rains
and summer heat, in a very favorable cycle for most plant species; these, in turn, attracted animals, herbivores and their carnivorous
predators. This relative regularity of the climate enabled men to
adapt easily to their spirit of observation, for example, for the selection, by
size, of cereal grains - wheat and barley and rice in China - preferring the
larger ones, to proceed to their priority reproduction.
It was in Asia that agriculture was generated and the domestication of
animals, producers of meat, milk and ability to apply their force in the work
of the earth, as assembled and in traction, from the moment the wheel was
invented in Mari, in present-day Syria around 2850 BCE. This did not
happen, for example, in the isolated American continent, before the arrival of
Cortez and Pizarro, since there were no large mammals as mounted or working
animals on the Mexican plateau; or were not adaptable to such, as the mud, among the
Incas.
Agriculture has sedentarized people, created new roles, and the complexity
of societies increased; and sharpened curiosity, creativity and
experimentation with a multiplier effect. Thus, the
techniques used were emerging, here and there, transmitting, through space ...
without patent registration. The Neolithic comes to India and the Balkans, around
6400 BCE and the pottery is born in Mesopotamia, benefiting from the abundance
of water and clay.
Other knowledge or core creations in the fourth millennium BCE are:
domestication of horses in Siberia, production of linen in Syria, silk in China
and shipping in Egypt. In the third millennium, we listened to the cuneiform
tablets in Elam, bronze and coin in Sumeria, the 365-day calendar and honey in
Egypt, tea in China, and also in the passage to the second millennium BCE, etc.
We also bear in mind the codes of
Ur-Nammu (2040 BCE) and Hamurabi 270 years later, both in Mesopotamia, with the
aim of establishing laws that would govern the rights and duties of the
community. In Rome, in 450 BC, the 12 Tables of Law were established
the basis of Roman law, which in turn was the foundation for the current legal
systems in Europe.
Not everything was positive. In Asia, religions that shape
or manipulate minds, which generate hatred, conflict and war, have arisen,
especially in the case of the so-called "Book" - Judaism,
Christianity and Islam; on a scale far superior to the others, also all born
there - Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism; in addition to Confucianism,
which is more like a public morality than a religion.
In Europe, the Minoan culture appears in Crete, linked to Ebla, an existing
civilization where today is Syria, about 2500 BCE and is transmitted to the
Peloponnese, constituting both the most developed areas of Europe at that time. Around 1630 BCE, the Indo-European Achaeans, the bearers of the bronze
culture, were imposed in Greece and, a little more than 500 years later, were
overtaken by the Dorians, who knew iron and came from Macedonia.
In 1070 the Greeks settled in Illyria, Corsica and Sardinia, and in 779 recorded
with Etruria, what may be called the first European state. At that time it is the foundation of Rome and the installation of the
Greeks in the Crimea and in the south of France. The
Greco-Persian Wars (495 BCE) show the existence of a development in this part
of Europe somewhat similar to that of Western Asia.
In the meantime, Rome unleashes an unstoppable expansion in the
Mediterranean basin, which will, in its entirety, frame a Mare Nostrum; in western Asia, a long-standing civilizational and
militarily irregular front is formed between Rome and the Parthian empire, and
then the Sassanid, which will end with Arab expansion in the seventh century.
The collapse of the Roman empire through various generals' shares was
accentuated, especially in the west, with a collapse of imperial unity
following the barbarian invasions. The Byzantine empire, the
bearer of Greco-Roman culture, well established in the eastern Mediterranean,
gradually weakened by the 8th-century Muslim expansion, the action of the Crusaders
and their Venetian or Genoese allies, and the Turks, Seldjucids and later on the
Ottomans.
The Ottomans were the last threat to Europe, coming from Asia, first played
at sea in Lepanto (1571) and later with a failed second Turkish siege to Vienna
(1683). At that time, globalization began, symbolically, with
the arrival of Gama in India, the circum-navigation of Magellan, and the
re-discovery of America. Europeans began to seize the maritime trade in Asia,
followed by the occupation of territories and the colonial partition that ended
in the late nineteenth century; further benefiting from the voluntary isolation of
China, the most powerful state globally, in the fourteenth century.
1.1 - The predominance of Europe through colonization and capitalism decays
after 1945
European colonization sank the Indian economy and society into poverty and
was followed in the 19th and 20th centuries by the Japanese in China and Korea
after taking the appropriate lesson from the threat of bombing by US Admiral
Perry. The sharing of territories between French, English and
Dutch (in Asia, the Portuguese left little more than the nostalgia of the
sixteenth century) was accompanied by the Americans who subtracted the
Philippines to a decadent Spain at the turn of the twentieth century.
China, too large and populous for a single formal colonizer, was the object
of a 20th-century partnership between the major European powers, the United
States, and Japan. Russia began in the seventeenth century the occupation of
Siberia, the Caucasus and states of central Asia. Persia and
Afghanistan fled from a typical settlement due to rivalry between the British
and Russians, in addition to the military defeats that Britain suffered at the
hands of the Afghans.
Already in the twentieth century, after the dismemberment of the Ottoman
Empire, English and French shredded the Arab world. The first
received the correspondent to Iraq, Palestine and an artificial Jordan
(delivered to a family of dignitaries, the Hashemite); later on, followed by the crime of surrendering Palestine and its people to the
genocidal instincts of the Zionists. France, on the other hand,
remained with Syria from which it decided to separate Lebanon, because then it
had a Maronite Christian majority, with "obvious" rights above the
Arab Muslims; and later (1938) handed the sandjak of Alexandretta (now Iskenderun) to Turkey so that it would be neutral in
an already foreseeable Second War.
However, with the discovery of oil in Arabia, the most profiteers are a
tribe of desert robbers - the Sauds - who overcomes the other tribes and conquers
the cosmopolitan Hedjaz, imposing Wahhabi dementia. Its link to oil
companies and later to the dollar's support as a global currency made the Saudi
monarchy a centerpiece in the Middle East, especially for the US; along with the continued existence of the Zionist entity, a kind of Western
fortress, with great superiority in armament in the region (it is the only
country to have atomic weapons, with the tacit support of the Western world).
In the Far East, Japan has developed a strong economy delivering (or forced
to deliver) to the US the suzerainty in the Chinese Sea and the respective
costs that should make the American military industry smile; on the other hand, its historical relations with China and, above all, with
Korea, have generated a flood of damages, of complaints in which the racism of
the Japanese does not help at all. The US has a constellation of
military bases in Japan (Okinawa and more dozens of other military installations); Guam, a colony in the Marianas; and around thirty in South
Korea, focused on the threat to China and North Korea, in the shadow of the war
that has developed for ... 65 years.
1.2 - Europe, again an Asian peninsula?
The land separation between Asia and Africa takes place on a short stretch
of land that extends the Gulf of Suez with the channel of the same name; and that, in fact, has never separated anything through time. With America, the separation of Asia is clear and is processed through the cold
strait of Bering.
Between Asia and Europe there is no clear geographical separation, but only
purely conventional, political boundaries. For example,
Russia is considered a European country but the largest part of its territory
is in Asia, although in population terms the largest range is in Europe.
As for Turkey, the same is true, but in reverse, with the territory and
population concentrated in Asia, keeping in Europe little more than the Greater
Istanbul. Only economics and politics admit that Turkey has been
a candidate for entry into the EU for some 40 years, whereas such a scenario has never been put to Russia by the Community authorities; nor will Russia ever put such a case.
The hypothesis of European integration of Turkey will never be anything else
but a hypothesis. If this were to happen, the country would become the
country with the largest population in the EU (above Germany, where millions of
Turks live); on the other hand, the Turks are overwhelmingly
Islamic, something that would find much opposition from nationalists, racists,
islamophobics, whose numbers have grown in the shadow of the ineptitude of the
European oligarchies, who have fed AfDs, LePens, Salvinis, Wilders and rubble
of the same type. The presence of a dictator like Erdogan, cools the
most enthusiastic of the enlargement who, however, accept Orbans and Kurz at
the hard core of the old Habsburg empire; and in the end
there is a fear in Europe that people from the Turkish branch, such as the
Azeris and the peoples of Central Asia, with Turkish agreements with Turkey, in
addition to the Chinese ouighurs, will enter. As for Russia,
it is too large and powerful, it offers various anti-bodies to bureaucrats who
would put headaches to the Trump on service; and would never
belong to the meek platoon of a NATO led from Washington. Therefore, there will be no EU reaching the Urals.
It was agreed to designate Europe as a continent alongside Asia, for
reasons more political and economic than geographical, we repeat; the proud and prejudiced European political classes would not accept being
integrated into an Asian peninsula, such as India, Arabia, the Malay peninsulas
or the ... Kamchatka. The Aegean islands unite more than separate the great
continuous masses on both sides of the sea ... as perceived by the refugees
arriving in Lesbos. The Bosphorus (550 to 3000 m wide) or the Dardanelles
(1500 m) are particularly narrow, with a separation between Europe and Asia
that can be overcome with a few strokes; are much tighter
than the Channel that has, in the narrowest area 33km ... a dimension that
certainly did not influence Brexit; or, narrower than the Strait
of Messina (3300 m).
In the Caucasus,
the high mountains separate the current six republics of the Russian Federation
of the others in the south, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Geographically, the latter are contained in Asia, with greater topographic
continuities with Turkey and Iran than with the six Russian republics. It may be thought that since Georgia and Armenia are of Orthodox Christian
culture, they should be included in Europe, but the same cannot be applied to
Azerbaijan, Islamic, Shiite and with strong links to Iran, where there is also
a population of Azerbaijanis. If religious culture is a determining factor, then the
Muslim republics contained in the Russian Federation and north of the mountain
range should be included in Asia. In this work, we decided to consider the
Caucasus mountain range, which in fact has many characteristics that hinder its
crossing, as the separator between Europe and Asia; and that allow
it to be a kaleidoscope of ethnicities and cultures.
If in the
Caucasus physical geography can be applied as an element of separation, and if
in the Caspian separation is admitted naturally, this is not the case with the
typical consideration in the Urals or the Volga as separators in Europe and
Asia, being an arbitrary demarcation, of convenience. The Urals do not
reach more than 1500/1600 m of altitude in some points; and in the
Yekaterinburg region, for example, they do not reach 400 m and have never been
an obstacle to the Mongol or Tatar invasions, nor have they contradicted the
incorporation of Siberia or the Islamic states of Central Asia into imperial
Russia. When Stalin moved factories east of the Urals, it was
not so much because they were difficult to transpose by the Nazis, but because
the effort and logistics to travel the distance of 1650 km (!) between Moscow
and Ekaterinburg, with ambushes along the way, was not something that Hitler's
generals considered to be of little risk; especially when
they could not even take Moscow or the formerly Leningrad. As for the Volga, it is quite navigable, like all rivers, an element of
connection rather than separation; and when they serve as a
border it maintains its porosity.
In fact, Europe
is a peninsula of a Euro-Asian continent, with a broad isthmus, of course, with
a population
of 745 M in 2016 (10% of Humanity, against 22.7% in 1950), which contrasts
sharply with the 4463 M of Asia (59.8% of the total, compared to 54.3% in
1950).
Bearing in mind the
loss of power and protagonism of Europe in the overall framework, following
decolonization; the cultural dwarfism that dominates the majority in
the European political classes, as well as its demographic stagnation, which
contrasts with the explosive African demographics and the growing size of the
Asian population, the Chinese strategy with the creation of the infrastructure
network of transport that will cross the Eurasian continent becomes evident. Does the route taken by Marco Polo regain importance in relation to the
route of Vasco da Gama in the connection between Asia and Europe? Peyrefitte in 1973, in the path of Napoleon, wrote "When China
Awakens, the World Will Tremble." Perhaps it will not tremble,
just as China will not return to the political insanity of the mandarins in the
fourteenth century to sink their spectacular ships and close in the cocoon; nor the Trump in service will place carrier substitutes in Central Asia ...
as it does in the Chinese Sea.
In the Global
Wealth Review-2018 report, we can see the growth of wealth in the main
countries (in %), recent and in the future, where the decline of Europe is well
present; the indicators have little to do with GDP but rather
with the appreciation of capital stock.
2007/17
|
2016/17
|
2017/27
|
|
USA
|
20
|
15
|
20
|
China
|
198
|
22
|
180
|
Japan
|
22
|
15
|
30
|
Great Britain
|
-2
|
3
|
10
|
Germany
|
0
|
5
|
10
|
India
|
160
|
25
|
200
|
France
|
-11
|
5
|
10
|
Canada
|
25
|
11
|
30
|
Australia
|
83
|
17
|
70
|
Italy
|
-19
|
4
|
10
|
In the question
of the “One belt, one road project”, consider:
·
It is, of course, a political project carried out by a
country (China) relatively homogenous in ethnic and cultural terms, with a huge
population, in a capitalist environment, with a centralized and despotic state
power that has a long-term strategy of the conduct of the economy and politics;
·
In economic terms, it is a question of facilitating
the framing of a rich Europe with high yields and technological capacities that
functions as a market for Chinese production; in capitalism, whoever does not conquer or invents markets, dies. In addition to Europe, it is intended to include:
Central Asia and the Middle East, with large energy resources, which are very
useful for the duration of the fossil fuels paradigm; the large populations of South Asia as a reserve of cheap labour and a huge
mass of future consumers; African raw materials and a future market with 2500 M in 2050; and to have on the same side, Russia's energy resources and military
capacity;
·
The so-called Silk Road, with all its land and sea
variants, is a very extensive trade network - commodities and energy - that
will function in an ongoing infrastructural network for which China's huge
financial resources and the AIIB are available (Asian Infrastructure Investment
Bank) established in 2017 with 57 founding countries, most of which are Western
European countries, Asia (but not Japan), Russia and Brazil - the only in the
Americas – a fact that shows the US displeasure with the project ;
·
It is evident that in this context of integration of
the three continents - Europe, Asia and Africa - there will also be a place for
a deeper connection in Latin America, despite its eccentric character in that
context; but that it could integrate the two shores of the
Pacific ( the
Trans-Pacific Association Agreement (TPP) was launched , even with the refusal of Trump and China from abroad,
but including, among others, Japan and Australia, Chile, Mexico and Peru).
·
The element implicitly and voluntarily outside this
strategy are the US, heirs and protagonists of the theory of Alfred Mahan[2] according to which continental masses must be monitored and dominated by
the "islands" which surround and contain them. Within this logic, the United States maintains, in and
around Asia, a chain of dozens of military installations, several navy
squadrons and areas of permanent insecurity and war (Middle East and Korea),
having as allies the Zionist entity and Saudi Arabia and other occasional creations
like Isis
/ Daesh, after al-Qaeda; which then, like the Golem, become uncontrollable, as it
has been seen.
2 - Demographic profile of Asian geopolitical areas
As we have done
with regard to Europe and the Africa, we measured the evolution of the Asian population between 1950 and 2016,
and a prospective assessment for 2050, following projections released by
UNCTAD, an institution of the United Nations. Thus, Asian
demographics reveal 1374 M people in 1950, 4463 M in 2016 and predicts an
additional 800 M by the middle of this century.
Although still
growing throughout the period, the Asian population, in the global context,
shows that its relative weight regularly rises from 54.3% in 1950 to 60.7% in
2000, decreasing somewhat by 2016 (59.8%), and the expectations to 2050 corresponds
to a portion of the total, close to that recorded a century ago; that is, 53.8% of the total. This prediction of relative
weight loss in Asia should also occur, especially in Europe and also more
modestly in America; all three continents lose representation in the world
population against Africa as we have seen before. Thus, the Asian population, which in 1950 was six
times greater than that of Africa, is 3.7 times higher in 2016 and will be
around twice as high in 2050. As for Europe, the situation has evolved very
rapidly, with Asia having 2.4 times more population than Europe in 1950, and
six or 7.3 times more in 2016 and 2050, respectively. In addition to
physical geography indicates Europe as an Asian peninsula, demography also
points to a lesser relevance within the Euro-Asian mass, as it also happens in
comparison with Africa.
We proceed, in
order to further detail the demographic approach, to the division of Asia into
two huge areas, substantially separated by the Indus - a separation that comes
from remote antiquity: one will be the Near and Middle East, in the classical
and Eurocentric way of considering the Western Asia, much of it with Islamic
culture, and the other, much less culturally homogeneous, east of the Indus and
which we called Central and East Asia[3].
In any of these
areas there are different rates of wealth creation and well-being, being able to
separate from the rest, a few anchor countries, as we did for Africa; those countries which will have a centripetal
representativeness and force in relation to peoples within a more or less
extended radius. On the other hand, Asia as a whole has a determinant
planetary influence, especially in the obvious cases of China, India and Japan,
for demographic, economic and political reasons.
With reference
to the year 1970, it is verified that the demographic evolution of Asia in its
total is determined by the Central and Eastern Asia that has a great
consideration in the continent's total; and this gives
more emphasis, in the graph, to the set of countries of Near and Middle East
when observed alone. Looking at the graph, we notice that for Central and
Eastern Asia the population grows 2.4 times, while for the Near and Middle East
the increase is more than five times in the projection for 2050.
As a rule, the
anchor sets in each of the country blocks have a demographic dynamism clearly
lower than the remaining countries of the same set. In the case of
Central and Eastern Asia, in the 46 years ending in 2016, the population is
slightly more than doubling for the anchor countries but multiplies by 2.7
times for the remaining ones; and in the projection for 2050, also in relation to
1970, the anchor countries tend to increase their population 2.1
times, whereas for others the increase could be of 3.6 times.
In the case of
the countries of the Near and Middle East the situation is similar to the one
mentioned above, but at much higher levels. The anchor
countries show growth figures clearly below the others, compared to 1970 (2.8
against 4.9 times in 2016); in forecasts for 2050 increases disproportion (3.4
times for anchor countries and 8.5 times for others in the cluster).
Finally, it
should be noted that the demographic growth of the anchoring countries in the
Near and Middle East evolves in parallel with the others (not anchor) in
Central and Eastern Asia; which will reveal - we will not go into the question
further - differences in birth rates and infant mortality, as well as a
relative equalization between the demographic dynamism between the poorest of
the richest and the richest of the poorest states.
Comparing the situation of the anchor and remaining countries in Africa and
the Near and Middle East in 2016 and 2050, it can be observed that in Africa
there is an approximate demographic evolution between the anchor countries and
the remaining countries; and that in the countries of the Near and Middle East
the differences are much more pronounced. This could be
interpreted as a great homogeneity among the African populations, with indices
of population growth indifferent to the situation of anchor countries or not; and that differences in economic dynamism do not differentiate levels of
population growth.
nº of times the population of 1970
2016
|
2050
|
|
Anchors - Africa
|
3.2
|
6.3
|
Anchors - NM East
|
2.8
|
3.4
|
Remaining - Africa
|
3.6
|
8.1
|
Remaining - NM East
|
4.9
|
8.5
|
2.1 - Demographic trends in the Near and Middle East
The countries of
the Near and Middle East can group together in various ways. Almost all are of Islamic matrix, except Armenia and Georgia where the
dominant culture is based on Byzantine Christianity. The same is true
of the Zionist entity politically using a designation of a "Jewish
state" that it is not; first, because historical Judaism has always been
integrated into the other nation-states without
aiming to constitute its own - until the rise of Zionism in
the mid-nineteenth century; and, secondly, because in power a racist, genocidal
and unbelieving oligarchy dominates.
Among the states
of Islamic culture, most of them have a Sunni population, although Shiites are
dominant in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, Azerbaijan and Yemen (zaidites) or
are major minorities in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Syria (Alawites) and Turkey. On the other hand, in Oman, the predominance belongs to the Ibadites,
another expression of the Islamism.
Most of the
countries in this group are heavily dependent on fossil
fuels - Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates (among which only three have
hydrocarbons, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah), Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Qatar and
Oman, with the Zionist entity having recently started capturing natural gas at
sea. In the others, hydrocarbons have little or no relative
significance; in addition to Bahrain - a pioneer of extraction in
the Gulf in 1932 - where exploitation ended, by exhaustion of the deposits.
In many of these
countries there are large numbers of immigrants. In Jordan a
substantial part of the population is Palestinian or of that descent. In Saudi Arabia there is a large minority of Yemenis besides Shiites from
the Gulf who, being Saudi, are not without discrimination, for that reason. Kuwait, Qatar and the Emirates are their natural frankly minority and
immigrants, mostly Pakistanis, Bangladeshis or Philippines, are
discriminated and subject to large poverty, working mainly in domestic
services.
As for
demography in the region, there is a great diversity of situations in the
period 1970/2016. Firstly, we note the staggering rate of population
growth in the Emirates (83.4% per year), followed by Qatar with
"only" 48.8% per annum; in real terms, from 235,000 to
9270,000 in the first case and from 110,000 to 2,570,000 in the second,
following an unusual recourse to immigrants. Other cases of
high average population growth occur in Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait.
The cases with
the lowest annual population growth are recorded in Azerbaijan (1.2%) and
Turkey (2.8%). Compared with Europe, in the same period, only a few countries
have rates similar to or higher than the latter; we speak of ...
Andorra (4.8%), S. Marino (1.6) and Luxembourg (1.5%) as we
have recently observed. In sum, Europe's largest demographic dynamics are at
the lowest level that occur in the Near and Middle East. And this, despite the wars brought to this region by so-called Westerners,
whose meager demographic growth - when it exists - depends essentially on the
importation of cheap immigrants, especially from Africa or the Near and Middle
East. "This is civilization, so said a lord"
(Fausto Bordalo Dias, a Portuguese singer).
In the Near and
Middle East there are also cases of population reduction in 1970/2016 - Armenia
and Georgia - whose losses are respectively -0.3 and -1.1% per year.
As
for the outlook for 2050, based on the populations registered in 2016, there is
a marked and widespread fall in the rates of annual population growth, compared
to the period previously mentioned, ending in 2016. For Lebanon there is an
average population decrease of 0.3%, as well as in Armenia and Georgia, in the
latter cases, with a slowing down of the population.
The cases with
the highest population growth rates for 2050 are Iraq (3.5% per year),
Palestine (3%) and Syria (2.5%); Iran (0.5%) and Turkey (0.6%), two of the
three nation-states we considered as regional anchors. These last two cases,
however, present indicators much higher than most European countries, if
Luxembourg and Norway are excluded.
Evolution
of the population of the Near and Middle East in 2050 compared to 2016
An interesting
comparison between indicators of population growth in 1970/2016 is the one that
relates Palestine (7.1% annually) and the Zionist entity (4.1%), reproducing
this great disproportion in expectations for 2050 (3% and 1.6%, respectively).
If we consider the population of the Palestinian state, adding the so-called
"Arabs" of Palestinian origin who live in the Zionist state (15-20%
of the total), adding that their birth rate is higher than that of the
occupiers and, finally, that there are a large number of immigrants from other
places, it can be said that today the Palestinian population is equated with
the Israeli population. If the demographic dynamics until 2050 are confirmed
and a massive arrival of new Jews attracted by the "Israeli homeland"
is not foreseen, it is evident that there is a serious problem that arises, in
the long term, to the so-called Israeli state, revealing its strategic
fragility. This frailty remains as long as it is guaranteed by military power,
by the disunity or connivance of the Arab states, and by the tolerance of
Europeans or the declared US support of Trump, as seen in the episode of
recognition of Jerusalem as a Zionist capital, or in the contempt over the
death of popular Palestinians by the bullets of the FDI / Tsahal, on the
anniversary of the Nakba.
Another issue
that continues to exist in the region is the Kurdish identity, divided by four
countries - Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria - with greater weight in the total
population of the first two. The wars in Iraq have elevated the autonomous
organization capacities of the Kurds, benefiting, first from the US protection
against Saddam; and after the same support in the face of the ISIS threat to
Kurdish territory, as well as the Iraqi (Shiite) government in Baghdad. In
Syria, Kurdish communities living along the Turkish border have benefited from
Assad's initial military inability to invade ISIS and other groups to generate
areas of self-organization following the expulsion of jihadists from Kurdish
deployment areas in Syria. It is known, however, that for the Turkish
government, his example is seen as a contagious factor for the Kurdish
population living in Turkey; as was noted in the recent Turkish attack on
Afrin.
The US has been
involved in destabilizing the corridor linking the Syrian / Lebanese coast to
Iraq or Iran, seeking its closure, while Russia is determined to maintain its
unique political and military position in the Mediterranean around of what is
called the Shiite axis. The United States and its regional pawns - mainly Saudi
Arabia and the Zionist entity - failed to overthrow Assad, whose consequences
would be the isolation of Lebanon, dominated by Shi'ite Hezbollah and above
all, distancing Iran, whose access to the Mediterranean would pass through
Turkey, also for purposes of suzerainty in the region. When the defeat of
jihadist groups became clear[4] Trump
created a new front of dispute, denouncing the multilateral agreement of 2015
regarding the non use by Iran of nuclear weapons that, however, have been
tacitly held and accepted to Israel for decades.
Turkey, for its
part, pursues a zigzag policy. It gives a natural priority to the
non-withdrawal of its Kurdish population; negotiated oil at an early stage with
the ISIS that was fighting Assad; accepted the EU money supply to control /
withhold refugees on their way to Europe; has waited for the right moment to occupy
Afrin's Syrian Kurdish area and, despite being a member of NATO, has been
establishing bridges with Russia with promises of buying sophisticated weapons.
Saudi Arabia
several years ago, with the support of the Gulf emirs, had been involved in a
civil war in Yemen, with the aim of gaining wider access to the Indian Ocean,
with control of the eastern shore of Bab el Mandeb and extending the
predominance of Wahhabi in the region, to the detriment of Shi'ism. A little
media war for which the "international community" - aligned by its
tenor Trump (as before by Obama) - looks aside; such as happen with the killing
of Palestinian demonstrators by the Zionists, which also became a routine.
Another chronic
focus of conflict in the region is Afghanistan. After the failed Soviet
invasion which largely contributed to the break-up of the USSR, the US
intervention at the head of the "international community"[5] in
search of Bin Laden and mullah Omar. With the formation of an Afghan government
supported by the USA, they rehearsed a withdrawal; but the Taliban currently
control much of the territory and the US embassy and government are stationed
in a heavily defended "green zone" of Kabul with the presence of
American troops with Portuguese soldiers assisting in airport security of the
capital. In this context, China negotiates with the Afghan government mining
areas and will certainly know how not to fall prey to Taliban attacks.
(to be
continued)
Previous texts on the evolution of the world
population
Europe
Africa
This and other
texts in:
[1] BCE is a way of presenting the chronology without connecting it with any religion,
like the traditional BC (before Christ); if convenient it can be used CE
(Common Era) for the times after an instituted year zero.
[2]
Alfred Mahan was
an American navy officer who considered is necessary for the preponderance of
the imperial powers (Britain and then, the USA) to possess a powerful navy and
naval bases to surround the great continental masses, especially in Asia
[3] Near and Middle East - Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Zionist Entity, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan,
Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Syria, Turkey and Yemen, where we
underline what we considered as regional anchors.
Central Asia and
Central Asia - Bangladesh,
Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, China (holding separately for
analysis the People's Republic, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), North Korea,
Guam, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius,
Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Palau, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand,
Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. The countries we
considered as regional anchors are identified with an underline.
[4] About jihadism see http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2015/11/o-jijadismo-os-semeadores-de-ventos-e_24.html or http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/02/jihadism-wind-sowers-and-storm-victims-1. (english version)
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