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[text/observer network columnist wu maiye's smoked cage essence]

the explosion of civilian electronic communication equipment in lebanon (hereinafter referred to as the "pager incident") was "an unbridled killing of civilians" and triggered vigilance and reflection around the world. the arab world was the first to be affected and reacted most strongly.

people have expressed distrust of electronic products produced in europe and the united states or whose supply chains are controlled by europe and the united states, and have begun to "turn sides" one after another.

a kuwaiti netizen named "amakuwait" made the following judgment:

"it is natural that people with sound morals and conscience have long replaced the united states with china. as for those who still have morals but lack conscience, after the pager incident, they have now replaced it (the united states) out of concern for their own safety."

these words express the thoughts of quite a number of people in the middle east.

there was even a wave of public opinion among international netizens, who believed that "china once again won by doing nothing" and even said that china would "take over" everything without doing anything in the future. it is said that some netizens also played up the jokes of "the queen of the east refused to take off her velvet gloves" and "confucius taught to sit by the river and let the corpses of the enemy float by."

a cartoon drawn by a foreign netizen, comparing china and the united states: china did nothing and won; the united states made a series of moves and lost.

in fact, there is no such thing as "winning without doing anything" in the world.

after the "pager incident" broke out, people from all over the world expressed their desire to switch to chinese mobile phones out of the thought of "safety first", so many people lamented that "huawei is the winner now." little did they know that in the international public opinion field, huawei has long been the winner - at least in the public opinion field in the middle east.

in 2020, qatar's al jazeera produced a video titled "the war for 5g - how to determine who will lead the world?" (hereinafter referred to as "5g war") and pushed it on the homepage. the video interprets the promotion of 5g technology as a war between china and the united states for world leadership, unfolding a grand scene:

"there is a unified consensus that it (5g) is the future that should benefit everyone and the future that should benefit all. it is a means of control, with which it can know everything and master the keys! ... throughout history, the powerful countries that have emerged in the world have told people that in any era, whoever can control information to the greatest extent will be the king of that era, and the strongest in our era is the largest data entity, the owner of big data."

there is a clue in the video, that is how trump tried to encircle huawei. in the eyes of the middle eastern people, huawei can directly confront the united states, it is powerful and tough, it has the brilliance of a god-made thing, and represents the glory and power that they cannot reach.

perhaps the turbulent environment in the middle east made the video makers particularly sensitive, and they came to the following conclusion:

"is this a new war? wars are common. is it a space war like the soviet union's? no, it's a war of data."

looking back now, we have to say that the team that produced this video had an accurate grasp of the contemporary world and to some extent predicted the "pager incident."

the video reminds compatriots:

"trump threatened the gulf countries: you have to make a choice, the united states or china? huawei's announcement that it would build some of its base stations in the arabian peninsula really upset him. and he wants china to stay away from us military bases in the region."

the video then subtly urged compatriots to follow the trend of history and make the right choice as soon as possible:

"the middle east will think twice before crossing the line of american will, until it takes that step for the sake of increasing wealth and satisfying more expectations."

in fact, the arab world has already made its choice. before the "pager incident" broke out, on september 13, the uae's "national" published a news report that the honor brand held an exclusive event "honor innovation" in dubai. at the seminar with the theme of "riding the wave of innovation - uae's vision for the future", participants discussed how honor's technological innovation can help the uae "develop industries through technology" and use "artificial intelligence to shape the country's future."

arab countries, pakistan and afghanistan are making similar efforts to join china's industrial chain and supply chain, and gain opportunities for modernization along with china's development. therefore, if there is a trend of switching to chinese equipment, countries such as the uae will also benefit and become winners.

it is worth noting that in 2022, khalid abu zaher, a columnist for arab news, published "logistics and the decoupling of east and west", citing "the art of war" to analyze the importance of supply chains. he pointed out that since the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, "interruptions in global supply chains and logistics channels have occurred every day and have become our daily experience", and therefore believes that:

"regarding logistics (which is the same word as 'military logistics' in modern european languages ​​such as english), this great chinese strategist wrote: 'the boundary between disorder and order lies in logistics.'" (excuse my ignorance, i don't know which sentence is the original text.)

from this perspective, he analyzed the world situation with very interesting ideas:

the united states will lose its status as a leading superpower and be replaced by beijing. the ideal situation is that the united states "supports china to become the leading power - a bit like what britain did to the united states, but without world war ii." however, the united states will never be willing to do so. the reality is that "the united states still refuses to face china's status as a leading superpower; it no longer wants to co-lead, nor does it want to support beijing's rise. it just wants to simply break up, and china is currently responding in the same way."

the author believes that china and the united states will "establish separate financial systems and separate complete rules", and the consequence is "decoupling between the east and the west". he believes that arab countries and iran are aware of this and have reached a consensus, knowing that such a situation contains both risks and opportunities. like many of his colleagues, zaher ultimately attributed it to "choice", believing that middle eastern countries have the possibility of choice, and once they work together to make the right choice, the difficult situation can be transformed into an opportunity.

it is worth mentioning that the author expressed a very penetrating point of view:

"it's clear that current warfare, like all wars in the past, relies on logistics. it does look like a battlefield like that, where cyberattacks play a role similar to airstrikes."

this statement is the most appropriate summary of the "pager incident".

this shows that the elites in the middle east have their own strengths and are very sharp in certain areas. they have both theoretical guidance and the ability to work with capital. therefore, although no one expected such a bad situation as the "pager incident", in the past few years, in different industries in different countries, there have been people who have made early arrangements and worked hard, so that once a crisis occurs, they can turn it into an opportunity.

the middle east elites always emphasize "choice", but it is not difficult to see that china's adherence to the principle of mutual benefit is the premise for the middle east countries to "choose" china. therefore, it is not "winning by doing nothing". on the contrary, adhering to the five principles of peaceful coexistence and enterprises based on integrity have made the people of the world unconsciously form trust in china. this is an intangible asset accumulated by generations, and now it is a natural result. outside of china, people have never been exposed to the idea of ​​"zhou gong spits out food to feed the world", on the contrary, they are brainwashed by the concept of power every day, so they cannot understand the truth.

however, for the current situation to constitute an opportunity for middle easterners, there is one key factor beyond their control: that the situation in the region does not deteriorate further.

after the "pager incident", local people rescued the wounded and the dying, but israel not only did not provide any humanitarian assistance, but also bombed southern lebanon on the 19th. this made people in the middle east worried that israel was desperate to escalate the war, turning the "gaza war" into a "lebanon-israel war", and then expanding it into an "iran-israel war", and even dragging in foreign powers.

in the eyes of the middle east elites, the region is, as always, a hotspot for great power competition. on september 20, in the united arab emirates’ gulf newspaper, kamel barhadi, a researcher at the university of tunisia, wrote in “arabs and the threat of world war iii” that he viewed the regional wars in the world today as an overall war:

“we (arabs) are at the heart of a war that stretches from northern ukraine to southern yemen, through gaza and across the open firing line between the east and the west.”

he warned:

if the war expands, the arab people will be the biggest victims. if the arab world remains on the "margin of history" and "cannot seize the opportunity of fundamental changes in the international system structure", then the achievements of national independence made in the last century will be difficult to maintain.

the above view reflects the common anxiety in the middle east. we worry that electronic products are no longer safe, and the middle eastern people not only have the same concerns as us, but also worry about waking up the next day to find that the war has destroyed their homes.

so, what should be done? in recent years, more and more middle eastern elites have begun to believe that in order to avoid being on the brink of history, they must "seize the opportunity for fundamental changes in the structure of the international system", that is, to realize that "china has or will definitely replace the united states."

it is obvious that the elite groups in the middle east are unable to break away from the indoctrination of western right-wing political theories. therefore, in their minds, there is only one cycle in the world, that is, a new great power "takes over" the world from the old great power. as for the middle east, it can only endure the fate of being "taken over".

therefore, many people in the middle east naturally believe that since it is time for china to take over the world, china should take over the middle east as soon as possible. this is a necessary step for both sides so that both sides can obtain the benefits they need. as early as 2020, the middle eastern elites sincerely believed that china would quickly take over lebanon in crisis and believed that it was a way out for lebanon. they thought that what was supposed to happen did not happen, so they believed that "confucius once taught to sit by the river and watch the corpses of the enemy float by."

the words of kuwaiti netizen "amakuwait" exactly follow that fixed idea, thinking that all the middle eastern people can do is to actively replace one great power with another. after the "pager incident", the comments of netizens from various countries on the internet reflected that the current state of thought of the middle eastern people is also the current state of thought of many people around the world.

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