Chinese Language School Projects Soft Power in North Iraq

Chinese lecturer, Zhiwei Hu, left, teachers and officials of the Chinese Language Department stand in front of Chinese language books intended for students in Salahaddin University in Irbil, Iraq, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2021 - (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
Chinese lecturer, Zhiwei Hu, left, teachers and officials of the Chinese Language Department stand in front of Chinese language books intended for students in Salahaddin University in Irbil, Iraq, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2021 - (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
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Chinese Language School Projects Soft Power in North Iraq

Chinese lecturer, Zhiwei Hu, left, teachers and officials of the Chinese Language Department stand in front of Chinese language books intended for students in Salahaddin University in Irbil, Iraq, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2021 - (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
Chinese lecturer, Zhiwei Hu, left, teachers and officials of the Chinese Language Department stand in front of Chinese language books intended for students in Salahaddin University in Irbil, Iraq, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2021 - (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

In a classroom in northern Iraq, Zhiwei Hu presides over his students as a conductor would an orchestra. He cues with a question, and the response from his students resounds in perfect, fluent Chinese.

The 52-year-old has been teaching the cohort of 14 Iraqi Kurdish students at the behest of the Chinese consulate in the northern city of Irbil.

His class is part of an experiment with the local Salahaddin University: If these students succeed in graduating, the Chinese Language Department would be officially open for enrollment, giving the growing plethora of Chinese companies in Iraq’s Kurdish region their pick for hires, The Associated Press reported.

Regin Yasin sits at the front. “I wanted to learn Chinese because I know China will have an upper hand in the future,” the 20-year-old student said. “China will expand here, that’s why I chose it.”

China’s interests in Iraq, anchored in energy to quench its growing needs, are expanding. Beijing is building power plants, factories, water treatment facilities, as well as badly needed schools across the country.

Dozens of contracts signed in recent years ensure China’s growing footprint, even as major Western companies, including the US, plot their exit. While Iraqi officials say they desire a greater US presence, they find appeal in China’s offer of development without conditions.

The language school is a projection of Chinese soft power, to familiarize the region with China. The more familiar they are, the more attracted they will be to Chinese goods,” said Sardar Aziz, a researcher who recently wrote a Kurdish-language book about China-Iraq relations.

Chinese companies dominate Iraq’s key economic sector, oil, and Beijing consumes 40% of Iraq’s crude exports. But from a narrow focus on hydrocarbons, Chinese investments have grown to include other industries, finance, transport, construction and communications.

The shift was spurred following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2013 announcement of the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, dubbed the new Silk Road, composed of a vast array of development and investment initiatives from East Asia through the Middle East to Europe. The US considers it unsettling, akin to a Trojan horse for Chinese expansion.

The initiative calls for China to develop relations with states along its path through political coordination, infrastructure connectivity, trade and financial integration, and people-to-people bonds.

In 2017, the Chinese consulate approached Salaheddin University’s College of Languages in 2017 with the idea of a Chinese language department. Opening a school in the capital Baghdad came with security risks, but the northern Kurdish-run region was relatively secure.

At first, the university wasn’t sure it would appeal to students or that it could find qualified instructors, the college’s dean, Atif Abdullah Farhadi, said.

So Farhadi required the consulate to provide and pay for teachers, textbooks, an audio lab and other classroom technologies and exchange opportunities in Beijing.

“They fulfilled all of the demands,” said Farhadi. The department opened in 2019 and is set to graduate its first cohort next year. “Then we will expand.”

The students said learning to write in Mandarin, the official language of mainland China, was the hardest part. Thousands of special characters had to be memorized.

And then there was pronunciation.

“Their tongues trembled,” Hu said. After five hours of lessons, five times a week over three years, “They are speaking very well.”

Farhadi wishes it could be the same for the English Language Department; the US and British consulates have seldom offered help, he said.

“They don’t support us at all,” he said.

As China grows its economic footprint, Western oil firms are reducing theirs. Many have expressed discontent with Iraq’s risky investment environment and unfavorable contract terms.

US oil giant Exxon Mobil’s exit from West Qurna 1 field last year came despite Iraqi pleas to stay, Oil Minister Ihsan Abduljabbar Ismail told The AP at the time. The presence of a major US company in Iraq had long served as a reassurance for other companies.

British Petroleum, operator of Iraq’s largest oil field Rumaila, plans to spin off its business there with another entity jointly owned with China’s CNPC. Other oil companies, including Russia’s Lukoil, are demanding amendments to contract terms as a condition to remain.

Chinese companies dominate oil contracts, from operating fields to providing downstream services, and they continue to win more. Recently, Iraq finalized terms with China’s Sinopec to develop Mansuriya gas field, which could produce 300 million standard cubic feet per day if approved by Iraq’s next government.

Investing in Iraq is a risk that China is willing to take. With lower profit margins, Chinese firms always offer more attractive, lower-price contracts, industry officials and Iraqi officials said.

Thursday is “Chinese Corner” at the language department.

Chinese businesses -- from oil to wallpapering -- come and meet the students under the pretext of practicing language skills. Most end up with promises for future employment.

“We speak in Chinese and talk about business and the future,” said one student, Hiwar Saadi. “They come to us to meet us and make a connection.”

Two students are already working part-time for a Chinese telecommunications company as translators.

“It’s the opposite in every other department in the university. Supply is high but the demand for jobs is low,” Farhadi said. “Here, the students are turning down job offers in order to focus on study.”

Lessons cover aspects of Chinese culture and history as well. Hu is always quick to remind the students of Beijing and Irbil’s shared golden past: Iraq was part of the ancient Silk Road trade route, linking China’s Han dynasty with the West.

A former Iraqi ambassador to Beijing, Mohammed Saber, said that during his time there, Chinese officials often recalled their shared history. Many Chinese also remembered how in the 1950s, Iraq shipped tons of dates to China to help during famine.

When Sabir began his post in 2004, Iraq-China trade stood at around half a billion dollars. When he left in 2010 it was $10 billion. Last year it reached roughly $30 billion.

“They need our oil, and we need to find a market to sell our oil. The road goes two ways,” he said.

Yao Yan, a Beijing native selling Chinese-made goods in Irbil’s Langa Market, agrees.

A small figure surrounded by mounds of handbags and shoes, she said Iraq offered her better economic prospects. She sends her earnings back home to care for her disabled teenage son.

“Even when there is an economic crisis here,” she said, referring to last year’s liquidity crisis spurred by falling oil prices, “The money is still good for China.”

At the language school, Diaa Sherzad has just completed an oral exam.

The 21-year-old said he is always thinking about what to do next. “The most important thing is how I can serve my people. If I know Chinese, it will help. For the future, for everything.”



As Netanyahu Expands Gaza War, Some Reservists Grow More Disillusioned

Reservists and former pilots from the Israel Air Force take part in a protest outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel, 12 August 2025. (EPA)
Reservists and former pilots from the Israel Air Force take part in a protest outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel, 12 August 2025. (EPA)
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As Netanyahu Expands Gaza War, Some Reservists Grow More Disillusioned

Reservists and former pilots from the Israel Air Force take part in a protest outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel, 12 August 2025. (EPA)
Reservists and former pilots from the Israel Air Force take part in a protest outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel, 12 August 2025. (EPA)

As Israel seeks to expand its offensive in Gaza, a measure of how the country's mood has changed in the nearly two-year-old conflict is the discontent evident among some reservists being called up to serve once again.

Shortly after the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel by Palestinian group Hamas, Israelis dropped everything -- honeymoons, studies and new lives abroad -- to rush home and fight.

Now, some voice disillusionment with political leaders sending them back into battle, as the military prepares to take control of Gaza City, the enclave's biggest urban center.

According to a study conducted by Agam Labs at the Hebrew University which measured sentiment about the new campaign among more than 300 people serving in the current war, 25.7% of reservists said their motivation had decreased significantly compared with the start of the campaign.

Another 10% said their motivation slightly decreased.

Asked to describe their feelings about the campaign, the biggest group -- 47% -- of responders expressed negative emotions towards the government and its handling of the war and hostage negotiations.

In March, before the latest offensive was announced, the Israeli news outlet Ynet reported that the amount of reservists reporting for duty was 30 percent below the number requested by military commanders.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to destroy Hamas after it attacked Israel in Oct. 7, 2023 in the bloodiest single day for Jews since the Holocaust, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

But the war has dragged on, with Hamas still putting up a fight and Israelis condemning their prime minister for failing to reach a deal with the group to win the release of hostages despite many mediation efforts.

'THIS WAR IS ENTIRELY POLITICAL'

Reservists were among thousands of Israelis who took part in a nationwide strike on Sunday, one of the biggest protests in support of families of hostages, calling on Netanyahu to reach an agreement with Hamas to end the war and release the remaining captives.

One of those angry protesters was Roni Zehavi, a reservist pilot who stopped serving out of principle after more than 200 days of service when the last ceasefire fell through.

He said that when reservists were enlisted, they did everything required without saying a word. But then questions such as "where is this going?" started to pop up, he recalled.

Reservists accused the government - the most far-right administration in Israel's history -- of perpetuating the war for political reasons.

"This war is entirely political, it has no goal except to keep Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister," he told Reuters.

"He is willing to do everything necessary, to sacrifice the hostages, fallen soldiers, dead citizens - to do what he needs so that he and his wife will stay in power. It's the tragedy of the state of Israel and it's the reality".

Asked for comment about the disenchantment voiced by some reservists, the Israeli military said it sees great importance in the reserve service and each case of absence is examined.

"In this challenging security reality, the contribution of the reservists is essential to the success of missions and to maintaining the security of the country," it said.

The prime minister's office was not immediately available for comment.

Netanyahu has so far resisted calls to establish a state inquiry - in which he could be implicated - into the security failures of the October 7 attack. He has said such an investigation should not be launched as long as the war is still under way. Some of his far-right coalition partners have threatened to bring down the government should the war end without meeting all its stated goals.

When Israel called up 360,000 reservists after the October 7 attack, the largest such compulsory mobilization since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, it received an enthusiastic response.

The mood among some reservists appears different now.

“I will not be part of a system that knows that it will kill the hostages. I'm just not prepared to take that. And I really fear that, to the point where it keeps me up at night," one combat medic told Reuters. He asked not to be identified as he was not authorized to speak.

According to Israel's Channel 12, the military plans to call up 250,000 reservists for the Gaza City offensive.

Israel has lost 898 soldiers and thousands have been wounded in the Gaza war, the country's longest conflict since the 1948 war that accompanied its creation. Its military response to the Hamas attack has killed over 61,000 people in Gaza, including many children, according to Gaza health authorities.

'LACK OF VISION'

Military service is mandatory in Israel, a small nation of fewer than 10 million people, but it relies heavily on reservists in times of crisis. Reserve duty is technically mandatory, though penalties for evasion often depend on the willingness of the direct commander to enforce punishment.

Reuters interviewed 10 Israeli reservists for this story.

Like many other reservists, special forces Sergeant Major A. Kalker concluded that Israel's military and political leadership has failed to formulate a sound day-after plan for the war.

"There's a lack of vision, both in the political and the senior military leadership, a real lack of vision," he said, but added that shouldn't amount to refusing to serve.

"Bibi (Netanyahu) is the king of not making decisions ... like treading water."

Reservist Brigadier General Roi Alkabetz told Reuters that the military and Israel's Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir had transitioned to using the reservists in a "measured way", because Zamir understood the hardship for reservists and had put much of the hard work on soldiers in mandatory service.

"He's doing it in a logical way," Alkabetz said. "The reservists will come."