Kith & Kin: a recurrent issue

[davidbfpo]

WoTR has an article on India's growing presence in the Middle East, notably the Persian Gulf region, which has some fascinating snippets, but I will cite the first passage which is relevant here, with my emphasis:

There are over 6 million Indian citizens working in the Middle East. That is more than the population of Finland. This provides some context as to why India has now actively started to build its relations further with the region. It also raises the question as to why it has waited for so long to do so.

Link:http://warontherocks.com/2014/04/ind...-persian-gulf/

Elsewhere I have seen articles on the deaths amongst construction workers from the sub-continent on building for the World Cup in Qatar 2022; concern being expressed, not as I recall by their home governments. Here is one BBC report:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-26482775

[davidbfpo]

Recently I read an article on traders from the Congo (DRC) in China (PRC), which came as a surprise, as it referred to a few thousand.

According to a Wiki piece there are:

According to a local newspaper report in 2008, the number of Africans in Guangzhou had been increasing by 30-40% each year, and formed the largest black community in Asia....from Nigeria, Mali, Guinea, Cameroon, Liberia nd the DRC....

Academics have attempted to estimate the size of the population. Huang Shiding of the Guangzhou Institute of Social Sciences in 2007 estimated the number of permanent residents of foreign nationality (six months and above) to be around 50,000, of which some 20,000 are of African origin. Roberto Castillo, a graduate student researching Africans in Guangzhou, estimated in 2013 fewer than 10,000 Africans residing in Guangzhou and 20-30,000 Africans travelling through Guangzhou at any one time. Castillo cautions that firm numbers are difficult as many Africans in Guangzhou are in constant transit so the concept of residence in this context is different from the usual understanding

Link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africans_in_Guangzhou

Apparently there are 300-500k expats in Shanghai, mainly from Taiwan and Asia. Plus a large number of students, many from the USA. They mainly live in one side of the city, alongside their Starbucks and the like.

[davidbfpo]

An Indian columnist on India's dependence on remittances:

Between 2001 and 2012, they remitted $339.3 billion. This was more than the total foreign direct investment flow into India during 2000-2014 which was only $326,509 million according to our commerce ministry.

I note he cites the Phillipines too:

Their 10.5 million overseas workers, including 1.074 million “irregular” workers, remitted $20 billion during 2011. This is 11.17 per cent of the country’s gross national product (GNP).

Link:http://www.asianage.com/columnists/o...t-out-mind-047

[Dayuhan]

An Indian columnist on India's dependence on remittances:

Back when I was spending a lot of time in that region I used to often not the peculiar symbiosis between the determined socialism of Kerala and the capitalist bastion of Dubai. Kerala's much-praised educational system produces quantities of graduates who can find no work in Kerala, so they end up filling Dubai's huge demand for mid-level bureaucrats. Not sure either could survive without the other.

I note he cites the Phillipines too:

I found that Philippine languages grease the wheels as effectively in the Middle East as they do in the Philippines, maybe more so. Speaking Tagalog in a hotel, restaurant, or shopping mall in the Middle East can get you a pretty amazing level of service.

The Gulf pattern seems to be that Filipinos are preferred for jobs involving face to face contact with customers, Indians dominate the back offices. Laborers are from Bangladesh and Pakistan. Technical expertise comes from Americans and Europeans, with a growing Korean and Chinese presence.

Of course Filipino workers are all over the world, not just the Middle east, less sure about the Indians on that score.

[davidbfpo]

The protests in Hong Kong have not appeared here (yet), but their impact is way beyond the special administrative region (SAR) as this Canadian article explains:

Because there are 300,000 Canadian citizens (most of Hong Kong origin) living in Hong Kong, and about 500,000 people of Hong Kong descent living in Canada, we have a big stake in the events playing out in Hong Kong.

Link:http://www.asiapacific.ca/canada-asi...-uncertainties

[davidbfpo]

A strange tale:

After Speaker John Boehner tapped him (Representative Devin Nunes (R., Calif.) as House Intelligence chairman in January, Nunes was in a better position to directly challenge the Pentagon. He set his sights on relocating the Joint Intelligence Analysis Center (JIAC), an “intelligence fusion center” that Congress approved for construction at U.K. airbase RAF Croughton.

Link:http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...air-force-base

Update June 2016:

The US is moving forward with consolidating its transatlantic intelligence analysis operations within a planned Joint Intelligence Analysis Complex at RAF Croughton..

Link:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...rce-leave-vote

[davidbfpo]

An unlikely headline in The Guardian, after a skirmish between the Italian state and:

Some 50,000 Chinese work in the area, making clothes and handbags with the prized “Made in Italy” label....Some of the firms are accused of using illegal migrant labour, ignoring safety rules and evading taxes. The area is also the focus of an investigation into allegations of money smuggling worth €4.5bn (£3.8bn) to China from Italy between 2006 and 2010.
Regional president Enrico Rossi .....vowed to tackle crime in the area, where he said half of all economic activity is illegal, €1bn in taxes go unpaid every year, and money is laundered through international transfers.

Link:https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-near-florence


Chinese diplomats have visited the town and made their own comments.

[davidbfpo]

Thanks to a pointer at a RUSI-British Yemeni Society conference on leaving Aden in 1967 (more on another thread one day) I learnt that Yemenis from the Hadhramaut Region, the former colonial era Eastern Aden Protectorate, had a diaspora across the Indian Ocean to India and Indonesia, which remains active today. Not only with commercial trading, religion and family settlements long-established that remain today.

I wonder if these links have helped AQ and more recently ISIS with their mission to expand, not only in the Yemen, but elsewhere.

There is a new book, from July 2017, on the theme: 'Hadhramaut and Its Diaspora: Yemeni Politics, Identity and Migration'. For a review see:http://middleeastreviewsonline.com/m...ity-migration/

[davidbfpo]

As if by magic yesterday Hurst Publishers notified this book was due out: 'Pan-Islamic Connections: Transnational Networks Between South Asia and the Gulf', which has this short review:

Connections of trade, family, learning and faith have existed between South Asia and the Gulf for hundreds of years. This book focuses on their workings in the modern period with especial emphasis on Islam. It demonstrates the significant and complex interactions which take place across the region, some of which are of strategic potential.

Link:http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/...-connections/?

No doubt there are books on the Omani relationship with East Africa, as a "lurker" reminded me; after all they were Zanzibar's rulers.

[davidbfpo]

Two papers in the latest 'Military Review' help to explain this issues.

The first is a 2006 article by the late Professor Samuel Huntingdon 'Diasporas, Foreign Governments, and American Politics' who looked at Indian, Jewish and Mexican population groups. He concluded:

American politics is increasingly an arena in which homeland governments and their diasporas attempt to shape American policy to serve homeland interests. This brings them into battles with other homelands and their diasporas fought out on Capitol Hill and in voting precincts across America. An ineluctable dynamic is at work. The more power the United States has in world politics, the more it becomes an arena of world politics, the more foreign governments and their diasporas attempt to influence American policy, and the less able the United States is to define and pursue its own national interests when these do not correspond with those of other countries that have exported people to America.

Link:http://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journ...ican-Politics/

The second is 'Russian Diaspora as a Means of Russian Foreign Policy' and ends with:

Russian foreign policy today is placing more and more importance on the use of soft power in support of the Russian diaspora.

Link:http://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journ...sian-Diaspora/

What is interesting is the graph of 'Proportions of Russian Population to the Country Population in the Former Soviet Republics: 1989 to 2005' as it shows as proportion they are shrinking and some quite large changes, e.g. Tajikistan 23.5% to 1.1%. Checking Wiki it points out there was a civil war, the latest estimate is Russians make up less then 0.5% and the total population estimate in 2016 was 8.7m. See:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajikistan

[davidbfpo]

This article's full title is: 'The dangerous influence of expats: Diaspora groups are often out of touch with the mood back home' and appears on anheard of website, although the author's name is familiar and thanks to a "lurker".

The focus is on the recent Ukrainian elections and it ends with:

Of course expats deserve a voice in their new country. Just because their voice may be louder and more impassioned, however, does not mean it should be allowed to drown out the rest.

Link:https://unherd.com/2019/05/the-dange...nd=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3