From the green onion boy to the sixty years old,
He's always used to hiding behind the scenes,
But it has already controlled the overall situation in silence.
Author: Huang Peizhao Feng Lu
Editor: Ling Yun Su Rui
A traditional Arabic robe, a pair of big eyes with a god, wide double eyelids, a thick beard, a lean and healthy figure...
This is the image that Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (hereinafter referred to as Mohammed) has recently displayed on the world stage.
From the young man to his sixties, he has always been accustomed to hiding behind the scenes and doing things steadily in silence. Even when he wore shorts and a helmet and rode through the city of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, no one knew that he was the third son of the founding president of the United Arab Emirates, Zayed.
Just a few days ago, Muhammad, who did not like to show his face, became the focus of global attention overnight.
In front of a delegation of dignitaries from around the world, he appeared to preside over the solemn funeral of his half-brother Khalifa, and was immediately elected as the new president of the United Arab Emirates, a tycoon of the Gulf.
Mohammed (left) and his brother Khalifa in 2001.
Only then did people realize that he had already taken control of the whole situation in silence.
The mysterious "MBZ"
In March 1961, the UAE's "Father of the Nation" Zayed welcomed his third son, Mohammed, in the country's city of Ain. Ain means "clear spring" in Arabic, where the scenery is beautiful and the air is fresh.
Although born with a "golden spoon", Muhammad's childhood was not easy. When he was very young, he was sent to Morocco by his father to study, and even used a pseudonym on his passport - in order to temper his son's mentality, Zayed specifically ordered his royal identity to be hidden.
Studying in a foreign country, Muhammad not only did not have any special treatment, but also had to work in the local hotel to earn living expenses, cooking and laundry.
Muhammad as a child (middle).
This habit of working incognito and diligently began to sprout from Muhammad's childhood and was reinforced later in his military career.
In 1979, at the age of 18, Mohammed went to the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, England, to learn to fly a military aircraft. After completing a full set of British military training, he continued to attend rigorous officer training courses in the Emirate of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirate.
These experiences gave Muhammad a lot of advantages in terms of willpower, flexibility, and psychological quality. He is well trained, alert and agile like a swooping eagle, doing things with "a hundred reassuring".
After all, fighting in the air requires extremely strong physical and mental qualities, and there must be no ambiguity, and people who are startled or procrastinate are obviously incompetent.
In the political arena, Mohammed started from the grassroots, from the officer of the elite security force "Amiri" Guard, to the fighter pilot of the UAE Air Force, step by step, until he was promoted to commander of the air force and deputy chief of staff.
In 1993, Mohammed became Chief of Staff of the Air Force and a year later became General.
In 1994, Mohammed (first from right) held a graduation ceremony with a new pilot at an air base.
Mohammed's personal command has enabled the UAE army to make great strides in strategic planning, organizational structure and defensive capabilities. Sending the first Arab astronauts into space, firing probes into Mars, and opening the first nuclear reactor in the desert were all done under the guidance of Muhammad's policies.
In March 2003, Mohammed inspected the UAE army.
Mohammed greets Mansouri, the first Arab astronaut to enter space.
Zayed was quite satisfied with the performance of the "Three Princes". In November 2003, Mohammed was appointed Deputy Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.
The following year, Zayed died and Khalifa became the new president, while Mohammed became crown prince of Abu Dhabi and in 2005 became the supreme deputy commander of the UAE armed forces and chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Committee.
It is worth mentioning that the Abu Dhabi Executive Committee is responsible for formulating the national development plan and is in charge of the huge wealth of the UAE, an oil powerhouse. By this time, Muhammad had begun to gradually enter the power core of the UAE.
In 2012, Mohammed watched a joint military exercise between the UAE and France.
In 2014, Khalifa suffered a sudden stroke and then faded from public view due to physical reasons.
Since then, Muhammad has taken over the state affairs that were originally in charge of the eldest brother and become the "de facto ruler" of the UAE - although various decrees and documents related to the country's major policies are still nominally signed by Khalifa, but behind them is actually by Muhammad.
However, while doing his duty, Mohammed showed as little as possible and did not steal the limelight of the president's big brother. In addition to his succinct resume and stable style of governance, Muhammad has almost no gossip, and because of this, he is regarded as an "invisible helmsman" with caution and low profile. He is often referred to by his initials "MBZ".
On May 13 of this year, after Khalifa's death from a long illness, Mohammed jumped from "de facto ruler" to "front-office president".
He once asked Yuan Longping's team to plant rice in the desert
The New York Times once summed up Mohammed's external influence: He used his oil wealth to have a huge impact on the entire Middle East and the United States.
French President Emmanuel Macron was the first Western leader to meet with Mohammed since taking office.
After the news of Khalifa's death, the United States sent a high-level delegation composed of Vice President Harris, Secretary of State Blinken, Secretary of Defense Austin, CIA Director Burns, etc. to attend the condolence event, such a "luxurious lineup" highlighted the importance of the UAE to the United States.
U.S. President Joe Biden issued a statement saying "Khalifa is a true partner and friend of the United States" and said he would continue to strengthen relations with the UAE.
However, behind the deliberate emphasis is uncertainty. Faced with U.S. pressure to support Ukraine and isolate Russia, Mohammed showed a "refusal to choose sides" attitude. This posture of not taking sides easily will inevitably offend the United States.
In fact, the relationship between the United States and the United Arab Emirates has been in constant friction recently. After taking office, Biden suspended plans by his predecessor Trump to sell multibillion-dollar fighter jets to the UAE. The UAE has also rejected U.S. demands to increase oil production to stabilize international oil prices. The UAE's envoy to Washington recently admitted that the two countries are undergoing a "stress test".
In recent years, the UAE has deepened its comprehensive strategic partnership with China, and Mohammed himself has visited China six times.
In 2018, Mohammed announced that he would vigorously develop Chinese language teaching across the country. He even invited Yuan Longping's team to the desert country, where rice came out.
When attending the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, he said that China is my second hometown and I am very happy to visit China again.
"The Afghan side will strengthen its relations with China and place relations with China in the highest priority of UAE diplomacy, and is committed to continuously consolidating and deepening the Arab-Chinese comprehensive strategic partnership." The Arab side is willing to continue to firmly support each other with the Chinese side, expand cooperation in the fields of industry, energy, investment, high technology, finance and vaccine drug research and development and production, and promote the better implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative in the Middle East." ”
It is undeniable that Mohammed has used the influence of oil to develop a confident foreign policy. His diplomatic style of judging the hour and sizing up the situation and taking his own economic interests as the starting point has also won him the reputation of a "strategic thinker."
Muhammad was clearly not too "cold" to hawkish policies and adventurism, and during his behind-the-scenes reign, the UAE and Israel formally established diplomatic relations and ended years of hostilities with Iran, Turkey, and Syria.
In fact, Mohammed has been trying to show diversity in order to break the traditional, monolithic "oil plutocrat" of the UAE.
While pursuing a diversified diplomatic strategy, Muhammad hopes to break the deformed economic development structure that is overly dependent on oil through economic diversification.
In 2017, he appointed an AI minister to lay out the artificial intelligence industry. The following year, he approved an economic stimulus package for the capital and called for a review of building codes to stimulate the city's vitality.
Cultural diversity is also the orientation of Muhammad's governance. In 2017, he announced a grand mosque in Abu Dhabi, the Sheikh Zayed Mosque named after his father, renamed the Mariam um Isa (Virgin Mary) Mosque to "strengthen the bonds of humanity between believers of different religions" .
Mohammed with Emirati children.
Loves to play with eagles and is good at writing poetry
The labels of military adept, diplomat, and political master do not sum up the image of Muhammad in the minds of Arabs — his over sixty-something but still athletic figure is probably more attractive. It is rare for his peers in Middle Eastern countries to maintain such a good figure.
Muhammad is 1.83 meters tall, weighs 70 kilograms, and looks no more than his early fifties. It's not unrelated to his penchant for wild hunting.
On the weekly "Lord Ma Day", the day on which Arab Muslims pray collectively on Fridays, if there is no urgent official task, Muhammad will take a shotgun and a trained falcon in his hand to hunt in the forests outside Abu Dhabi.
Hunting and falconry, Muhammad's greatest personal hobby, has persisted from his youth to the present.
Muhammad's enthusiasm for the keeping of falcons led to his keen interest in the conservation of precious animals such as falcons and antelopes, and he promoted the establishment of a foundation for the conservation of related species.
His penchant for hunting has also led to the inclusion of forest conservation in his governance – he was honorary chairman of the Abu Dhabi Environment Authority and built a carbon-free "Masdar" city near the city as a model project for the country's environmental protection.
Mohammed was with his family. He married in 1981 and has 9 children.
Muhammad, who came from the royal family, was a little more elegant. He was also a "poetry teenager" when he was young, often sharing his work online and publishing poetry collections.
Muhammad in his youth.
Dubai Sheikh Rashid once wrote a poem for Muhammad called "The Lion". In the poem, he compares Muhammad to a lion of infinite power that "can turn stones into rubble." In this poem, the lion is the most respected animal – if someone tries to attack it, his loved ones will protect it, and even if he dies, he will die in the highest place (i.e., with the highest honor).
This reflects The popularity and reputation of Muhammad in the UAE. And just after he was elected as the new president, the chiefs of the seven emirates of the UAE unanimously supported the new host election, which also confirmed this again.
Of course, pilots, hunters, and poets are only Muhammad's "little side hustles", after all, this time, Muhammad is at the helm of not just a fighter jet, but the whole country.
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