Finally, there is a welcome in the eight-year-old war in Yemeni that has claimed about 350 000 people. The war between the government and the Houthi rebels – reportedly backed by Iran – has been the singular most source of destabilisation in the region.
The Yemeni authorities are supported by the regional powerhouse, Saudi Arabia. Geopolitical experts have opined that the war that broke out in 2014, and claimed a whopping 85 000 innocent lives of children under the age of five, has been a proxy war between perennial enemies, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The deaths of the majority of the Yemeni children were as a result of starvation and malnutrition. It’s a miracle that a country known as Yemeni still stands after a decade and half of a non-stop military conflict. Perhaps from the severe ruins, some parts of the country are left. What is known about Yemeni is that the country’s basic civil infrastructure and supply chains have totally collapsed.
Many men, women and children have perished due to treatable diseases such as cholera. The tragic story of the devastation of Yemeni and her millions of people happened in full view of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other multinational bodies.
Yet, the common theme that runs through the Yemeni war is the silence of the international community. It is as if they wished the war was not taking place on our planet. It is moments such as these that can drive one to lose hope in humanity, and the human race.
However, the increasing role of China in global politics as a peace broker has thankfully resulted in both Riyadh and Tehran smoking a peace pipe, ending long hostilities and agreeing to re-establish bilateral diplomatic ties.
China’s foreign policy is premised on the need to respect and embrace international cooperation in pursuit of multilateralism in global affairs.
China’s President Xi Jinping is probably the busiest head of state, receiving a constant flow of arriving foreign heads of state and other dignitaries. The entire global community has awakened to the reality that China is the inevitable future, and not the past. Most foresighted world leaders who have turned their backs on yesterday and focusing on tomorrow have identified China as a to-go-to destination.
President Xi’s foreign policy is crystal clear that China shall not interfere in the domestic affairs of other sovereign nations. However, as the recent evidence in halting the devastating Yemeni war shows, China is determined to play a meaningful in pursuit of world peace.
The theory behind halting the war in Yemeni appears to be on the back of the truce between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the world’s two leading oil producing nations.
For far too long, the cruel agony of conflict has decimated the infrastructure of Yemeni in full view of a relatively silent international community. Such is the nature of our self-serving geopolitics. Most powerful states invest time and resources in conflict that they fan – and keep alive.
They do so far away from their own borders. In that way, they are assured that none of their nationals are likely to return home in body bags in full view of the ever-present media. They are acutely aware about the effects of published deaths in their domestic politics, and how that can influence the electorate to effect democratic regime change.
The story of the Yemeni conflict is an indictment on the UN and indeed the global architecture of our times. The inward-looking, selfish formulations of foreign policies that are devoid of humanity and human rights have become the stock-in-trade for the powerful democracies of the developed nations. It is in this light that the majestic rise of China in geopolitics is a welcome development. The world longs for a superpower that will not see world peace as a threat to its existence.
Employment in the modern era should no longer be the preserve of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) of the states that align their foreign policy with the annihilation of adversaries. By nature, the MIC thrives off war and conflict, and where there is harmony, the mission becomes to turn the tables. Their mantra is spine-chilling: peace is bad for business. In my book, any foreign policy that is premised on sowing bad blood, mayhem wanton conflict is downright evil.
But peace, and peaceful coexistence with others regardless of ideological differences need to be the ultimate goal that citizens the world over demand of their governments.
The prolonged suffering and devastation of Yemenis, a once stable nation whose people deserved nothing other than to live in peace, must be yesterday’s story.
A recent report by Reuters claimed that Saudi delegates are scheduled to travel to the Yemen capital Sana’a to thrash out the modalities for a “permanent ceasefire”.
The beauty about China is that it is a humble superpower. Beijing does not believe in megaphone diplomacy. Neither does it subscribe to gung-ho diplomacy. China goes about sowing the seeds of peace quietly. Their deeds – or the result thereof, are suddenly there for the international community to see. It is in this sense that China can truly, therefore, be described as a breath of fresh air.
American journalist Bradley Blankenship recently wrote the following about the war in Yemen: “It is undoubtedly one of the most brutal and total wars seen in modern history, yet almost entirely off the radar for most Western media for nearly a decade.”
We need a media that is not embedded with warmongering governments. As the Fourth Estate, the press owes it to itself and its reputation as the voice of the voiceless – the layer of security and protection of the weak against the inherently powerful who are unscrupulous by nature.
The world needs to thank Chinese diplomacy for choosing peace instead of profiting from war. To bring to an unexpected end the “gruesome human tragedy” that has been the Yemeni war cannot be child’s play. And to do almost all alone, China deserves even a greater acknowledgement and praise.
This is the kind of a superpower that the world has missed. A global power that does not throw its weight around coercing smaller and weaker nations to toe its line. The global community must emulate China’s foreign policy that is based on the respect for international law by all sovereign states, no matter how big or small.
Furthermore, a desirable foreign policy is the one premised on the ethos of the founding of the UN – multilateralism, respect for the sovereignty of all states and international cooperation based on collective development of all.
This is why on his recent visit to China, French President Emmanuel Macron was of the view that Beijing has what it takes to help end the conflict in Ukraine, which the West seems happy to prolong by spewing unsavoury words that destroys, instead of building.
None of Ukraine’s Western allies has come up with their proposed peace plan. Where they pretend to do that, their propositions are at a face value preposterous and simply non-starters. Conversely, hardly a month goes by without Western countries announcing a new batch of economic sanctions against Russia, and the pledge for more weapons and money to Kyiv.
That is their recipe for a world at peace with itself. A bloc of the international community that is preoccupied only with its selfish interests, instead of the global peace and stability. Such shenanigans are sure to make China appear like a faultless leader of the world community. Luckily, China’s economy is capable to lead in the reconstruction and development of Yemen.
The wealthy Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich Iraq will hopefully also join in the rebuilding efforts of Yemen. In fact, the entire Middle Eastern nations, led by the Arab League, should join hands with China in the noble effort to give back to the people of Yemen what they had lost in a war most of them did not want, nor cause.