China and the Islamic World How the New Silk Road Is Transforming Global Politics Reviews

Photographs by Adam Dean and Susetta Bozzi

The megamall is bustling with shoppers at noon when two Pakistani men — dark-skinned with black beards, wearing white skullcaps and the traditional salwar kameez of the subcontinent — drop their bags near a tertiary-flooring sporting-goods store. They remove their leather sandals, place their safari vests on the floor, and prostrate themselves toward Mecca, thousands of miles abroad.

"Allahu Akbar," they murmur. "Ashadu an la ilaha ill Allah …"

The devout Pakistanis are facing west, not e. In fact, they're in the Far E — in Yiwu, a boomtown of 2.2 one thousand thousand in China's Zhejiang Province, 200 miles southwest of Shanghai.

Hanging from skylights higher up them are two banners emblazoned with propaganda meant to inspire the masses: Face up THE WORLD, SERVE THE Land AND ASSEMBLE COMMODITIES FAR AND Most, MAKE FRIENDS AT Habitation AND Abroad.

Their advertizement-hoc prayer hall is Yiwu's International Trade Mart. In the summer of 1982, only as People's republic of china was opening to capitalism, the local government allocated land on the rural town'south outskirts for an open up-air market. What began every bit a cluster of street vendors has transmogrified into the Trade Mart, the world'due south largest small-commodities marketplace: a chain of warehouses that opened in 2002 and now spans more than 988 acres — big enough to fit 10 Malls of America.

If China is the earth's manufacturing plant, so Yiwu is its showroom. Balloons fabricated in Guangzhou, teacups fired in Jingdezhen, and slippers sewn in Pinghu — they're all on display in Yiwu, and then traders can browse and haggle without having to schlep across the country to scope out different factories. Yiwu has fabricated commerce convenient, particularly for Muslim buyers from the Eye Eastward and beyond.

The entrance of the vast Trade Mart is designed to impress. Nigh the main doors, set amidst a glass cube, a towering sign gives a vague sense of what lies within. District No. one sells fake flowers, jewelry, and crafts. Luggage, clocks, small appliances, and pelting gear are in district No. ii. Demand jotter, sports equipment, or zippers? Head to No. 3. District No. iv holds bras, knitted belts, and yarn. But that'southward non virtually all.

Imagine a fortress converted into a convention center turned into a bazaar, with fewer windows. Inside, by a fleet of ATMs and up the escalator, are 62,000 stalls selling some 410,000 products. The buzz of fluorescent lights is drowned out by the noise of thousands of conversations in Standard mandarin, Arabic, Swahili, Spanish, Hindi, Russian, Farsi, English, and the local Yiwu dialect. Tweezers, sink faucets, power strips, java mugs, and hammers fill row after row of booths, each about the size of a prison cell. Suits of armor are on the top flooring, next to patio furniture and artificial fireplaces. Toys are beneath. In the footbridges that link the districts, entrepreneurs have set up banks of pleather massage chairs. Vending machines spit out compress-wrapped dress shirts for those needing a quick wardrobe change.

Upstairs, night-lights glow in the form of gingerbread houses. There are clown wigs, solar panels, vases, and razors. Trademark infringement abounds: Display cases are lined with fake iPhones, racks of knockoff Gucci purses, and piles of Polo suitcases. SpongeBob dolls droop beside plenty Toy Story cowboys to brand Disney executives cry. Glow sticks are tucked well-nigh a stairwell that leads up to a hall filled with religious kitsch: Jesus bobblehead dolls, paintings of the Dalai Lama, crucifixes, and Santa Claus lamps. The array of products aimed at Muslim consumers appeals to the pious and the heretic. Stalls sell hijabs, prayer rugs, electronic Korans, Mecca devotional paintings, and fake virginity kits, which leak ruby-red liquid when ripped.

Traders place wholesale orders after viewing these appurtenances on brandish at the Trade Mart. Most of the trade is destined for shelves in developing countries where quality standards are lower than in more sophisticated Northward American and European markets. But while traders come in search of bargains, their bulk concern has made Yiwu rich: In 2010, the developing earth deemed for more than half of the city's $2.86 billion in exports, an increase of 34% from 2009. Last year, China surpassed the U.S. every bit the No. i exporter to the Middle E and was the region'due south biggest buyer of oil, importing more than one-tenth of the Gulf states' crude, as well as 23% of Iran'due south.

As both seller and buyer to the Middle East, China'south influence is being felt by everyone from sheiks to bakers. "Prc has made information technology affordable for the average Arab household to buy once-expensive consumer goods," says Ben Simpfendorfer, author of The New Silk Road: How a Rising Arab Globe Is Turning Abroad From the W and Rediscovering Red china. The bear upon of this trade is not on policy makers' radar, but it should be, he says. "The global economy isn't driven only past big-ticket deals, such as billion-dollar Boeing sales negotiated between a scattering of senior executives. The individual traders and pocket-sized-time entrepreneurs in the emerging economies are equally of import."

According to local lore, Yemeni merchants discovered Yiwu a decade ago and returned to the Gulf laden with cheap goods and tales of quick deals, which soon spread across the Arab world and beyond. Today, 200,000 Middle Eastern traders make the trek to Yiwu every twelvemonth, along with Pakistanis, Indonesians, and Malaysians. Chinese Muslims have, in plow, settled in this city to work as translators and middlemen, sharing prayer rugs and profits in a modern reenactment of the Silk Road, but with jail cell phones instead of camels.

Yiwu is a city of no historical significance and fifty-fifty less glamour. Lonely Planet ignores it entirely. The millions of people from across the globe who descend hither each year are not tourists looking for ancient palaces. Since its opening, the Trade Mart has expanded 3 times, and the influx of Middle Eastern traders has been a major factor in the city'southward growth. After China was admitted to the World Trade Organization, in 2001, droves of Arabs, Iranians, and Pakistanis descended on Yiwu in the years that followed, drawn to the i-cease shop established by the local government. Hundreds of Middle Eastern trading companies put down stakes, and Chinese factories flocked to the megamall where they could rent space to showcase their wares. "Fifty-fifty as the Mideast'south demand started to surge, peculiarly subsequently the postal service-2004 surge in oil prices, Arabs found it very difficult to visit the West. It helped that People's republic of china both relaxed visa restrictions and started selling goods at a much cheaper price than either Europe or the U.S.," says Simpfendorfer.

Yiwu's success in many ways symbolizes China'due south rise from a centrally planned economy to the capitalist superpower that replaced the United States this yr as the world'south top manufacturer. The Chinese government, intimately involved in every aspect of the city's commercial landscape, is and so proud of Yiwu's lucrative plan that information technology is even exporting the Trade Mart model. In Jan, construction began in Bangkok on a replica of the Yiwu marketplace, called the China City Complex, to house 70,000 Chinese tenants selling Prc-made appurtenances.

Yiwu's megamall does have its detractors. In March, the Office of the U.South. Trade Representative included the Trade Mart on its list of "notorious markets" for rampant copyright infringement. A USTR official noted that it is known "in industry circles for counterfeits of all types."

Despite the fakes, the city has get a magnet for merchants like Mohammad Mahmoud, a toy salesman who fled Baghdad for Dubai in 2005, when he could no longer escape the chaos of the Iraq war. First his brother was kidnapped. His wife'south cousins were next. Mahmoud paid a hefty ransom, only their corpses were establish in the street, shot in the head execution-style.

Republic of iraq is non as violent these days, and then Mahmoud makes trips back a few times a yr to sell toys. He used to club his Mainland china-made goods from Dubai, merely Yiwu now is his preferred source because he gets better deals there. "Iraqis just want inexpensive, not quality, and I need to make a profit," he says one afternoon at the Trade Market, his orange sacks stuffed with dolls, knockoff Lego sets, and water guns. "Every twelvemonth Yiwu is getting bigger, and the Chinese sympathize what nosotros do. Arabs tin can do business here, no problem."

The influx of Yiwu-bound traders from the Arab earth has lured thousands of non-Muslim-Chinese entrepreneurs, hungry to cash in on this growing niche market place, to piece of work as translators, middlemen, and suppliers of the traditional appurtenances which make up Muslim daily life.

Jiang Feng, a 25-year-former from Huzhou, a city three hours n, went his whole childhood without meeting a Middle Easterner; now the faraway region is a cornerstone of his business. When Jiang was a teenager, Centre Eastern traders began coming to his city with samples of kaffiyehs, looking for locals to manufacture the traditional scarves, and then his family started a kaffiyeh factory in their home. Concluding October, Jiang opened a store in Yiwu, hoping to be closer to the action. The store is a veritable Arab haberdashery. Frail cotton wool kaffiyehs are draped neatly in rows along the walls. Flowing white thawb robes, ubiquitous in the Persian Gulf, hang from racks next to khaki jallabiyas preferred by the men of North Africa. Organized religion is non something he has in common with his buyers, simply Jiang understands the demand to become the designs right. "Our customers' religion and what they clothing are very connected, so we tin't make mistakes," he says.

The impact of the Middle Eastward trade registers across Yiwu; you can see information technology all over the streets of this New Silk Road outpost. In the Maida neighborhood, down the street from the Merchandise Mart, a Muslim enclave has taken root. Hookah cafés line the sidewalks, where Uighurs — a Turkic race of Muslims from China'southward Xinjiang region in the far northwest — fire up mutton kebabs and vats of gold pilaf. The Arab Street is hither in the flesh: Egyptians, Algerians, Iraqis, Saudis, Yemenis, and Syrians. They cut hair, supervene upon shisha dress-down, and run Arabic language schools.

Ane dark, the Taj Mahal restaurant is overflowing with boisterous Pakistanis in salwar kameez watching the Cricket World Loving cup. Next door, tables of mustachioed Arabs sit quietly, intent on their backgammon boards. Al Jazeera blares. The air is fragrant with the smoke of mutton and apple-shisha tobacco.

Hesham Wahdain, a 26-yr-old Yemenite, mans the counter at an electronics shop across the street. IPhones (fake and existent), Muslim prayer clocks, and audio Korans fill the shelves. Last year, Wahdain left his hometown of Hadramut later he was laid off by a cement company. With Yemen's unemployment at 35%, he had no reason to stay. "I went to university for computer science and now I sell phones," he says. For now, Wahdain is content to stay in Prc. Merely information technology pains him that his homeland is unwilling or incapable of copying the China miracle. "We don't even make pens in Yemen. How can we make Koran alert clocks?"

No identify in the metropolis embodies the growth and influence of the Muslim populace in Yiwu more than the local mosque. "We've had to motion 3 times because nosotros keep running out of room," says the imam, Ma Chunzhen, a 36-yr-one-time from Xinjiang who speaks fluent Standard arabic. When Ma became the local imam x years agone, around 60 Pakistani and Arab traders would gather on Fridays in a hotel conference room to pray. Since and so, the number of weekly worshippers has grown to 7,000 — 60% of them foreigners — filling a massive, new construction graced by marble columns. A two-story edifice with ablution fountains looms in back. The complex's funds, Ma says, came entirely from private donors.

Ma is tall with thick hair that he covers with a black fez during the week and a white head scarf on Fridays. He tells foreigners to call him Mohammed. Equally both an official appointed by the Chinese government and the community's spiritual leader, Ma has duties that go beyond the religious. Over the years, he has explained the intricacies of Chinese taxation laws to panicked importers and gained wide respect as a mediator in disputes between traders and suppliers. "People are here to make money, and coin makes things complicated," he says.

Ma takes his function as moral compass seriously. On this day, Ma begins the service with an exhortation for the faithful to do business organization the halal mode. It's a common theme for him. As he says after: "Islam has ethical standards that are beneficial for doing business in Yiwu, like honesty and trustworthiness. Poor-quality appurtenances and cheating are prohibited."

Those concerns are paramount for Mohamed Khattab, an Egyptian-American who owns an Islamic-appurtenances store in Falls Church, Virginia. As he tugs on his sneakers after midday prayers, Khattab reflects on the perils of making deals in a business civilisation that is so identified with corruption.

Yiwu'southward merchandise is well-nigh all wholesale, so the foreign exporters who come to place orders are dependent on those big shipments for their livelihood. When problems with the supply concatenation in Yiwu ascend for people similar Khattab, their whole world can collapse. Since get-go coming in 2009, he has returned to Yiwu seven times, mostly to track down Chinese business organisation partners who accept cleaved their discussion. This time, Khattab'southward problem is a $60,000 shipment of hookah parts, tea spectacles, and jewelry that he says is being held hostage by a shady network including trading associates who are demanding 110,000 yuan, or $sixteen,800, in bribes. At start, he thought it was an official fee, until his trading agent told him it would be under the table. "How large is the table that you need that much coin?" Khattab wonders.

Khattab is no amateur; he has congenital his store into 1 of the largest Islamic-product wholesale businesses in the U.Due south. The shameless lack of ethics of his Chinese partners has come as a daze. To fix the matter of the missing goods, Khattab has teamed up with a fellow Egyptian and the human being's Chinese married woman, a vital resources for a foreigner. He's been in Yiwu for weeks, renewing his tourist visa and spending thousands of dollars on hotel rooms while his associates plot and delay. All he can do now is await and pray. "Yiwu is like Vegas," he says with a chuckle. "Businessmen come with dreams of getting rich, but it's a hazard, and to win you have to know how to play the game."

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Source: https://www.fastcompany.com/1760843/chinas-return-silk-road