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.”



The End of a Forced Coexistence: Arab Tribes Turn Against the Syrian Democratic Forces in Eastern Syria

Armed clashes between Arab tribal fighters and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Manbij area of northern Syria in September 2023 (Getty)
Armed clashes between Arab tribal fighters and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Manbij area of northern Syria in September 2023 (Getty)
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The End of a Forced Coexistence: Arab Tribes Turn Against the Syrian Democratic Forces in Eastern Syria

Armed clashes between Arab tribal fighters and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Manbij area of northern Syria in September 2023 (Getty)
Armed clashes between Arab tribal fighters and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Manbij area of northern Syria in September 2023 (Getty)

In Syria’s vast northeastern areas, a brittle arrangement has for years held together an uneasy coexistence between the Arab tribes and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). But today, that arrangement appears closer than ever to unraveling, as mounting grievances and shifting regional dynamics converge to end what many tribal leaders now call a “forced coexistence.”

Over the past months, prominent Arab tribal leaders have stepped up their denunciations of the SDF, accusing it of discrimination, repression, and siphoning off the region’s natural wealth. These tensions have erupted into public declarations, including a striking statement in early July, in which elders from major tribes in Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, and al-Hasakah demanded that the US-led international coalition end its support for the SDF.

From Tactical Alliance to Deep Estrangement

When the SDF first emerged in 2015 - formed largely by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) but incorporating Arab and Christian militias - many Arab tribes regarded it as a necessary partner against ISIS. After all, the militant group had rampaged through tribal lands, massacring communities and imposing draconian rule. For a time, this partnership worked: from 2015 to 2017, tribes like the Shammar, Baggara, and parts of the Aqeedat fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Kurdish forces in a shared struggle against ISIS.

But as the warfronts cooled, new frictions emerged. Arab leaders began to accuse the SDF of marginalizing them politically and economically, imposing ideologically charged school curricula, conscripting young men and boys, and monopolizing oil and wheat revenues.

By 2018 and 2019, large protests against mandatory conscription and perceived ethnic bias erupted across the region. Still, the SDF retained an aura of indispensability, its American backing and battlefield record insulating it from more serious challenges.
Today, that insulation is wearing thin.

The most recent wave of anger began in June 2025, when an SDF fighter shot and killed 11-year-old Farid al-Hureish in the town of Abu Hardoub. Days later, another boy, Ali al-Awni, died after SDF forces opened fire as he gathered wheat near a checkpoint. Such incidents are far from isolated. Local monitors and human rights groups have documented kidnappings, forced recruitment of minors through the Revolutionary Youth organization, and heavy financial levies on families seeking exemptions from military service.

In a recent interview, Nasser Hammoud al-Faraj, a prominent sheikh from the Boushaban tribe, said these abuses had created a “boiling point” across the region: “The people have lived for years under repression, exclusion, and humiliation,” he said. “This is not a foreign agenda; our tribes themselves demanded this declaration.”

Indeed, the July statement signed by 14 tribal dignitaries did not mince words. It accused the SDF of “systematic oppression,” destabilization, and theft of resources. Addressed to the US government, the declaration called for an end to military and political support for the SDF and for Syria’s central government to reassert sovereignty over the entire northeast.

Though much Western coverage portrays the SDF as a unified Kurdish force, it is in fact a complex coalition. Alongside the YPG, it includes Arab formations such as the Sanadid Forces - historically loyal to the Shammar tribe - and the Deir ez-Zor Military Council, which incorporated Arab fighters from the Aqeedat and Baggara. Yet these same tribal networks are now fracturing.

A dramatic illustration came in 2023, when the SDF arrested Ahmed al-Khabil (Abu Khawla), leader of the Deir ez-Zor Military Council. That move shattered remaining loyalty among many Arab factions. “From that moment, the last shreds of trust began to disappear,” says al-Faraj.

To complicate matters further, some tribes and sub-clans remain aligned with the SDF, while others are in contact with Damascus. Even within a single tribe, families may be divided: some serving in SDF structures, others quietly supporting the Syrian government, and still others advocating autonomy or neutrality.

This tangle of loyalties is not new. For generations, tribal allegiances have shifted according to local interests, personal rivalries, and broader geopolitical currents. But according to tribal leaders, the balance is tipping decisively away from cooperation with the SDF.

While recent tribal declarations have emphasized peaceful solutions, the language has also grown more menacing. Sheikh al-Faraj said plainly that if diplomatic avenues fail, tribes may pursue military action: “We do not seek conflict for its own sake,” he said. “But we cannot accept the occupation of our lands. We will act if necessary, with our own forces and with others who share our vision.”

To that end, tribal networks have quietly reorganized self-defense groups and explored links with Damascus. While the SDF still controls the bulk of the region militarily, the Syrian government has positioned itself as a potential guarantor of tribal rights and national unity.

In the past year, official Syrian media - long restrained in its references to the SDF - has begun openly condemning it as an occupying force. Even Governor Ghassan al-Sayyed Ahmad of Deir ez-Zor, typically cautious in public remarks, confirmed that Damascus retains military options: “If negotiations fail,” he warned in late June, “we have three fully prepared divisions ready to intervene.”

Strategic Calculations: Damascus, Washington, and Ankara

For the United States, this tribal rupture represents a profound dilemma. The SDF has been Washington’s main counterterrorism partner against ISIS. US officials, including Special Envoy Thomas Barrack, have repeatedly stressed that their cooperation is based on combating extremism rather than endorsing any project of Kurdish autonomy. But tribal grievances are testing this posture.

While the Biden administration has so far avoided any direct condemnation of the SDF, it has privately urged Kurdish commanders to moderate their policies. According to multiple regional sources, US diplomats have warned that continued abuses could undermine the entire anti-ISIS coalition and trigger Turkish or Syrian intervention.

Türkiye, for its part, has consistently opposed any Kurdish-led administration along its border. Turkish leaders have threatened new incursions if the SDF attempts to formalize autonomy or establish closer ties with the PKK. Analysts believe that any large-scale tribal uprising would likely draw tacit Turkish support, especially if it further weakens Kurdish positions.

To contain the crisis, the SDF has resorted to tactical concessions. In the aftermath of the 2023 clashes, it released waves of detainees, some of whom were arrested for allegedly supporting ISIS, others simply for joining tribal protests. The releases continued sporadically into mid-2025, culminating in a large-scale exchange in April: 140 SDF captives for 100 prisoners held by Syrian government forces.

While these deals have bought time, they have not erased deep resentment. Many tribes now insist that only the full restoration of Syrian state authority can bring stability.

Beyond military options, Arab tribes have begun constructing new political frameworks. In April, tribal elites announced the creation of the “Council for Cooperation and Coordination in Jazira and the Euphrates,” aimed at unifying tribal voices against what they called SDF “hegemony.” In founding statements, council leaders vowed to reject any attempt by the SDF to claim representation of Arab communities in negotiations with Damascus or in international forums.

This reflects a broader evolution in tribal political consciousness. Where once many leaders accepted limited accommodation with the SDF, they now see prolonged Kurdish-led rule as an existential threat to Arab identity, economic rights, and local governance.

The northeastern region is a mosaic. In Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa, Arabs form overwhelming majorities, organized in centuries-old confederations like the Aqeedat, Baggara, and Jubur. In al-Hasakah, the picture is more mixed: Arabs dominate much of the countryside, while Kurds are concentrated in urban centers such as Qamishli and Ras al-Ain. Christian Assyrian and Syriac communities add further complexity, as do smaller minorities of Turkmen, Circassians, and Armenians.

Any future political arrangement - whether federal, autonomous, or unitary - will have to balance these identities. The head of the Research Unit at the London-based Abaad Center for Strategic Studies, Syrian researcher Firas Faham, said: “The region is a dormant volcano. If there is no comprehensive settlement, conflict is inevitable.”

End of the Era of Forced Coexistence

In recent weeks, this metaphorical volcano has rumbled ever louder. Syrian state media and official statements now refer openly to “the occupation” by SDF forces. Behind closed doors, discussions are underway among Damascus, Moscow, and even Ankara about a possible reconfiguration of control.

Mudar Hammoud al-Assad, chairman of the Supreme Council of Syrian Tribes and Clans, told Asharq al-Awsat that the SDF’s options are narrowing: “After the American envoy clearly stated that the only legitimate interlocutor is the Syrian government, the SDF is exposed. They may face military action with tacit American and Turkish approval.”

Even if open war does not break out, tribal consensus against the SDF has never been stronger. What once was a tactical alliance, born of necessity in the struggle against ISIS, has become a marriage of deep resentment.

Despite the historical differences among the tribes, the growing resentment over marginalization, arbitrary arrests, and other grievances appears to have unified a tribal discourse demanding the return of the Syrian Army. Options remain suspended between negotiations and military confrontation, especially in light of official Syrian statements about the readiness of government forces.

This escalation places the international coalition in a delicate balancing act between supporting its ally, the Syrian Democratic Forces - whose local legitimacy is increasingly contested - and responding to tribal pressures warning of a potential explosion of unrest, something Washington does not want and is actively trying to prevent.