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The mention of Qatar may be unfamiliar to most people, if it were not for this World Cup football match, perhaps many people would not have set their sights on this "small country" in the Middle East for the rest of their lives.
To briefly introduce Qatar, a traditional Middle Eastern Arab country located in western Asia, bordering Saudi Arabia. It covers an area of 11,500 square kilometers. Similar to a larger second-tier city on the mainland. In addition to the area, it is also "small" in other ways beyond the understanding of many people.
Vol.1 This "small country" is not ordinary
In terms of the actual number of people living in Singapore, which is often referred to as a "small country", there are about 6 million people. Kuwait, often referred to as a "small country", has more than 4.6 million people. The UAE has nearly 10 million people, including almost 3 million in the Emirate of Dubai alone. The entire territory of Qatar has only about 2.64 million permanent residents, and the total population will only reach 2.88 million in 2021.
This is based on a rapid increase of 1 million people over the past decade. Of these 2.64 million people, only more than 400,000 are truly Qatari citizens, accounting for 15% of the total population. This country's population in Europe is about the same as Iceland and smaller than Luxembourg. In contrast, the UAE and Kuwait, which also have a high proportion of foreign populations, still have a population of 1.5 million to 2 million. Moreover, most of the foreign population in Qatar do not speak Arabic as their mother tongue.
The country's largest number of foreign residents come from South Asia, numbering about 1.5 million nationalities in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. These countries were deeply influenced by British colonization in modern times, and English was often used as an inter-ethnic lingua franca.
This is followed by Southeast Asia with about 400,000 people, mainly from the Philippines. The Philippines is multilingual, and Filipino, based on Tagalog, is not the mother tongue of the vast majority of people. The Philippines is greatly influenced by the United States in modern times, and English is often used as an inter-ethnic lingua franca.
Among the native Arabic speakers, Egyptians are the largest, numbering about 200,000. However, their mother tongue, Egyptian Arabic, and Qatar's native Gulf Arabic are very different and completely incomprehensible. Although standard Arabic can be used as an intermediary in theory, in reality many people have a worrying level of mastery of standard language, and they are not accustomed to using it in daily life. Coupled with the fact that English is also very widely spoken in Egypt, Egyptians and Qataris often use English as a secondary language for conversation. In the cities represented by Doha, Standard Arabic and the local mainstream dialect combined are not enough to pass all occasions, and only with the addition of English can it barely play the role of "Mandarin".
Geographically, Qatar is located on the Qatar Peninsula on the southwestern shore of the Persian Gulf, bordering the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The coastline is 550 km long.
Qatar is flat, mostly a sandy desert, slightly higher near the west coast, with extensive exposed limestone to the south from Zikrit, and Qatar's onshore oil is mainly stored in this area. This also makes Qatar a small country, but also an authentic country of tycoons.
Qatar has a tropical desert climate with hot and dry shores and humid coasts. Summer is from April to October, making it the longest season of the year. Temperatures are highest from July to September, reaching 45°C, and winters are cool and dry, with lows of 7°C. The average annual precipitation is only 75.2 mm. Groundwater sources are scarce. Gasoline is cheaper than water here, and in 2011 it was about 8 cents per liter (1 calorie is equivalent to 1.74 yuan). Groundwater sources are scarce, fresh water is desalinated, and drinking water is generally bottled pure water or bottled mineral water.
Its capital is Doha, located in the middle of the east coast of the Qatar Peninsula, is the largest city in the country, as well as the political, economic, cultural and transportation center of the country, and a famous port city. The political system of the country is a constitutional monarchy, the Supreme Leader of the Emirate is the Amir, and the activities of any political parties, most of whom are Arabs, are professed by Islam. But Qatar is a country where secularization and tradition coexist.
What makes Qatar's business culture special compared to business in other Middle Eastern Arab countries is that it is both conservative and open.
As a Middle Eastern country that connects the East and the West, Qatar, like many countries on the Arabian Peninsula, really makes it move towards becoming a super-rich country with full confidence is the abundant oil and gas resources under its feet!
As of January 2019, it has proven oil reserves of 2.5 billion tons, ranking 13th in the world, natural gas reserves of 24.7 trillion cubic meters, is the world's largest LNG production and exporter, the world's third largest natural gas reserves, and China's third largest natural gas importer, but because of its backward industry and manufacturing, it still cannot be recognized as a developed country.
After the West launched gas sanctions against Russia, Qatar became the EU's largest LNG importer. In the first half of 2022, Qatar's gas revenues doubled, earning 150 billion riyals. This makes it the World Cup and the largest investment ever.
But before the development of oil and gas, the people here were still relatively bitter, mainly fishing and collecting pearls. Islam was introduced in the 7th century before it was incorporated into the Arab Empire. At the beginning of the 18th century, the Al Thani family moved from the Abilene oasis in the Arabian Peninsula to Qatar, and in the mid-19th century established the Emirate of Qatar, which continues to this day. In modern history, like the vast majority of backward countries in the world, they also suffered from foreign aggression and signed unequal treaties, until they officially declared independence in 1971 and joined the League of Arab States and the United Nations in the same year.
Qatar is an absolute monarchy led by the "Al Thani family" since the mid-19th century, and the discovery of oil and gas under British protection replaced the original pearling industry as the country's most important source of income. With abundant oil and gas resources, Qatar has completed the primitive accumulation of capital and accumulated huge wealth. Before 1995, Qatar was a monarchy whose wealth was concentrated in the royal family and whose economy depended heavily on oil and gas exports.
After 1995, Qatar completed a magnificent turnaround, rushing in the direction of industrialization and modernization. The year 1995 thus became a pivotal year in Qatar's history.
Vol.2 Why is Qatar so trenched
On June 27 of that year, Qatari Crown Prince Hamad took advantage of his father Khalifa to go on vacation to Switzerland and launched the Qatari version of the "Xuanwu Gate Change", freezing Khalifa's property, and successfully completed the peaceful usurpation of power as an emir. Successfully ascended to the throne of Qatar.
Hamad has studied in the West since he was a child, and he is full of imagination about the industrialization and modernization of the West. He overthrew his father's rule to make Qatar better. Therefore, under Hamad's rule, the new king divided the power of Qatar among more nobles, while actively developing industry, tourism and finance, and distributing more wealth to the common people at the bottom of Qatar.
This has enabled Qatar to solve the gap between the rich and the poor between different classes and quickly move towards common prosperity. Foreign workers do most of the work in Qatar, while Qatari citizens are mostly in lighter jobs. For Qatari citizens, even if there is no job, no industry, there is no need to worry at all, Qatar provides high unemployment benefits for Qatari citizens without any source of income, which is much higher than the wages of foreign workers, so Qatari citizens do not have any life pressure at all.
Qatar's per capita GDP is about 68,000 US dollars, which is a statistical data for all resident population, including foreign workers, if foreign workers are excluded, only Qatari citizens are counted, then Qatar's per capita GDP is extremely high. As a result, the per capita income of Qatari citizens is much higher than Qatar's per capita GDP, and the level of affluence is simply staggering. According to statistics from the International Monetary Fund, Qatar's per capita income is 146,000 US dollars, equivalent to 1.04 million yuan, ranking first in the world.
There is money, and it doesn't cost more. This is also the annoyance of Qatari happiness. They are free of water and electricity, do not need money for schooling, and are free not only for medical treatment in Qatar, but also for treatment abroad. Giving birth to a child pays 35,000, as long as you work 3 hours a day. It should be noted here that this three-hour working system is generally only for domestic residents, on the contrary, they are also very strict with foreign staff, no matter what they do, they need to have the guarantee of local people. In a famous interview in the Qatari press, a Qatari father told reporters: "I work 3 hours a day, even overtime until 2 pm, and now Qataris rarely have my pragmatic spirit." ”
You may be wondering, why can Qataris work such short hours?
According to the relevant media reports of The Paper, we can conclude that there are two core reasons:
One: Everyone is the founder of the company. Because Qatari law stipulates that foreigners who go to Qatar to open a company, they must find a local partnership, and they are not allowed to be wholly foreign-owned, and must have joint ventures. Moreover, in the joint venture, locals own at least 51% of the shares. Qatari citizens are not short of money, which leads to foreigners with good entrepreneurial ideas, as long as they can persuade a Qatari citizen to contribute 51% of the shares, they can start a business. Since there are only more than 400,000 Qatari citizens, this means that every household in Qatar has at least one company of its own, and most can own dozens of companies, so everyone may be the boss and the majority shareholder with 51% of the shares.
Second: mass recruitment of foreign workers from the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Qatar is a paradise for migrant workers. Because Qatar is not only one of the countries with the lowest crime rate in the world, but also offers super high salaries. As a newly developed country in East Asia, South Korea's average monthly salary is 16,000 yuan, but due to the scarcity of local population resources, the average monthly salary of foreign workers in Qatar is as high as 22,000 yuan.
In Doha during the day, on the sun-exposed streets, you can't really see many people, but you can see some Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Nepalis cleaning up garbage, watering green spaces, and building roads, all sweating. Since Qatar is small, with a total population of only 2.88 million, only 15% of whom are Qatari citizens. But the country is rich, so a large number of people from the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia come to Qatar to work, basically doing low-end things that Qataris themselves do not like to do. As a result, 85% of migrant workers work for 15% of Qataris.
Therefore, in this World Cup, Qatar's police are not enough, hiring 3,000 police officers from Turkey and 4,500 professional soldiers from Pakistan to be responsible for Qatar's World Cup security.
Qatar has been developing non-oil and gas industries as the main way to diversify its national income and get rid of its dependence on oil, focusing on attracting foreign investment and technology; Change the country's dependence on oil and gas resources through foreign investment to achieve sustainable and circular development.
Therefore, Qatar wholly acquired the Italian luxury brand Valentino, is the largest shareholder of Deutsche Bank, the largest shareholder of Credit Suisse Bank, the largest shareholder of the London Stock Exchange, the third largest shareholder of the German Volkswagen Group, the largest shareholder of Swiss Glencore, the largest real estate developer in London, the controlling shareholder of Harrods Department Store, the world's largest luxury department store, the largest shareholder of J. Semboli Public Limited, the second largest supermarket chain in the UK, and the controlling company of Spanish El Gles, Also bought Paris Saint-Germain club...
In order to expand Qatar's sports influence, the Qatar Investment Authority controls 20% of the global sports market through investment. British Airways, London Heathrow, Turkey's Akdeniz Port, Ukraine's Olvia Port, France's 52-60 Champs-Elysées and Egypt's Telecom have all been infiltrated by Qatari capital, and equity investments are spread all over the world. And as a result, he won the right to host the 2022 Football World Cup.
For the 2022 Qatar World Cup, Qatar gave a budget of 1.4 trillion yuan, 10 times that of the previous two combined, because the current World Cup in Qatar is the first time that an Arab country has hosted this event, the first time it has been held in the northern hemisphere winter, and the first World Cup hosted by a country that has never reached the final stage of the World Cup.
In early November, former FIFA president Blatter complained: "It was a mistake to choose Qatar as the host country, the country is too small, football and the world. And the reason why Qatar was chosen may be that there are many shady "tricks", such as money transactions.
Before the election, in order to win the right to hold the event, Qatar's official media Al Jazeera made a move, successfully winning the bid for the broadcast rights at a high price of 400 million US dollars, about 2.8 billion yuan.
This is simply sending money, because Chinese CCTV has a larger audience and market share, and won the bid for the Chinese broadcast rights of the first two World Cups, which added up to less than $400 million.
In addition to giving the World Cup a high budget, Qatar also found the most suitable partner for the World Cup - China.
Vol.3 China did not miss the World Cup
China and Qatar established diplomatic relations on 9 July 1988.
Since the establishment of diplomatic relations, relations between the two countries have developed smoothly. In November 2014, the two countries established a strategic partnership. In 2017, the bilateral trade volume between China and Qatar was US$8.08 billion, of which our exports were US$1.68 billion and imports were US$6.4 billion, up 46.2%, 11% and 59.4% respectively year-on-year. From January to October 2018, the bilateral trade volume between China and Qatar was US$9.46 billion, of which our exports were US$2.68 billion and imports were US$6.4 billion, up 46.1%, 10.9% and 59.4% respectively year-on-year. In 2017, China imported 1.0141 million tons of crude oil from Qatar, a year-on-year increase of 111.5%, and imported 7.48 million tons of liquefied natural gas from Qatar, a year-on-year increase of 51%.
China's main export commodities are machinery and equipment, electrical and electronic products, metal products, etc., and imported commodities are liquefied natural gas, crude oil, polyethylene, etc.
The cooperation between the two countries in the fields of culture, finance and aviation has yielded fruitful results. The 2016 China-Qatar Cultural Year was opened. In recent years, Chinese art teams have performed in Qatar many times and have been widely praised by the local people. From April to June 2018, the "Treasures of Remembrance – Qatar Al Thani Collection Exhibition" was held at the Palace Museum. In 2014, the two parties signed a local currency swap agreement; The Doha RMB Clearing Centre was officially launched, and Qatar was granted the status of "RMB Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor". Qatar Airways currently operates direct flights between Doha and Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing and Hangzhou. In July 2018, the two countries signed a comprehensive mutual visa exemption agreement, which came into effect on December 21.
Therefore, in the construction of this World Cup, Qatar chose China, a country with the most complete industrial variety in the world and rich experience in hosting world competitions, as a partner.
In order to host the Century Cup, Qatar spent 45 billion US dollars, about 320.1 billion yuan, to directly build a new city, named Lusail, to meet the needs of the event. In Lusail, the most central landmark is naturally the Qatar World Cup main stadium built by China Railway Construction in 1774 days, and the Lusail Stadium, which can accommodate 80,000 people.
With an internal area of 195,000 square meters, the stadium is the largest venue in this World Cup and will host important events and events such as the World Cup semi-finals, finals and closing ceremonies, which is also the first World Cup stadium project undertaken by a Chinese enterprise as a general contractor for design and construction.
The leather seats, LED screens, air conditioning, and even communication facilities, network equipment of the stadium's joint command and control center, even the more than 10,000 security fences outside, are Chinese.
Not only the Lusail Stadium, but also several other World Cup stadiums in Qatar are also involved in the construction of Chinese companies.
It is worth mentioning that the steel used in the stadium is made by China Precision Steel, the large-scale construction equipment used in construction, and Sany Heavy Industry.
However, compared with Brazil, Qatar is not prepared to "spend money in vain". It also acknowledges that the cost relates to all infrastructure projects and their development in the State of Qatar, not just for the World Cup. Luceral Stadium, for example, is already planned to be converted into a school, hospital and hotel.
And, in order to become a great attraction, 22 world-class luxury hotels, two large golf courses, and a large park and entertainment center have been built around the Lusail Stadium, which can accommodate 280,000 people at the same time.
This will entice tourists to stay in hotels, after only 130,000 regular hotel rooms in Qatar as of 2018.
In fact, Qatar used to be a place where birds do not, and if it were not for the discovery of oil fields in the 40s of the last century, the population would still be miserable now. Coupled with Qatar's location in the Gulf region, the transportation environment in some places is surprisingly backward.
Therefore, taking advantage of this World Cup, Qatar also upgraded its transportation facilities and opened the Doha Metro, which has a speed of up to 100 km / h, which is one of the fastest metros in the world.
To accommodate more international flights, Qatar has also expanded Hamad International Airport, the country's only civil airport.
Qatar originally had a Hamad international airport, but it had to be expanded to cope with the upcoming huge fan base, so billions of dollars were invested in China. We immediately built 11,720 square meters of retail and dining space based on world-class landscaping, increasing the previous 140 gates to 179.
At the same time, the world-renowned art collection is displayed in the terminal, and the green plants are planted in a large area, so that visitors do not feel that it is a desert city.
It also offers travelers a 9,000-square-meter premium business class lounge, which also includes a spa, gym, restaurant, business center and other guest services.
After China's construction, the annual passenger throughput of Hamad International Airport can increase from the previous 40 million to 58 million, and we can continue to expand after the World Cup, and the annual passenger throughput will directly increase to more than 70 million.
Considering that some local tycoons will come with cruise ships and need port calls, Qatar handed over to China Communications Group to build the Pearl Island project, according to the highest construction standards of the port, all luxury marinas, high-end hotels, luxury stores and other infrastructure. This is a paradise for the rich.
After the participating teams and fans come, they need to pick up the bus. So China Yutong Bus prepared 888 pure electric new energy vehicles for the event this time.
In order to solve the problem of fan accommodation during the World Cup, the Chinese construction team prepared 20,000 container-like panel houses in addition to hotels, which are all made in China, and the panels are mainly from Guangdong and Zhejiang. These panel rooms are fully equipped and in quite comfortable condition, with double beds, toilets, air conditioning, fans and refrigerators.
In order to ensure the demand for electricity during the World Cup, PowerChina Guizhou Engineering Co., Ltd. and photovoltaic boss LONGi Green Energy gave Qatar an 800 MW photovoltaic power station. We have installed more than 2 million solar panels, covering an area of 10 million square meters, which is by far the world's third largest single photovoltaic power station and the world's largest photovoltaic project using tracking systems and bifacial modules. It is expected to provide about 1.8 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity per year, meet the annual electricity consumption of about 300,000 households, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 900,000 tons per year.
China's Gezhouba Group has also built a dam in Qatar with 15 reservoirs, each with a capacity of 500,000 cubic meters, which is currently the largest single reservoir in the world, capable of meeting millions of people at the same time.
In addition, the irrigation and maintenance of the court lawn is supported by the technical support provided by Ningxia University.
The trees outside the stadium were all transported from Foshan, and there were tens of thousands.
In this year's official sponsor list, Chinese companies occupy 4 seats, and Wanda is the largest sponsor of this World Cup.
Vol.4 With the World Cup, Qatar finds a presence
The reason why Qatar has spent so much effort to host the World Cup is because of its harsh natural environment, few people have settled for a long time, so it has not been present in the geopolitical pattern.
Although before the World Cup, Qatar's national broadcaster, Al Jazeera, was best known for its high-quality programming and its political views were neutral and objective, undisturbed by other financiers and powers.
According to statistics, in more than 140 countries around the world, Al Jazeera is the second largest station after CNN and the BBC in terms of viewership, with more than 270 million viewers; on the online platform, Al Jazeera has more than 8 million subscribers. It not only broke the monopoly of media discourse power in Western countries, but also shook the information blockade of Western countries, and some scholars even proposed the term "peninsula effect" to describe the decentralization effect it created.
But because Qatar's diplomacy is left and right, it is relatively neutral. In most conflicts, they did not choose sides, but played the role of passages and bridges, and became the diplomatic center of the Middle East for a while.
Unlike Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other countries' extreme hostility to Iran, Israel and other countries, Qatar maintains relative neutrality and even maintains relatively close relations with Iran. Qatar is also an ally of the United States, and the Central Command of the US overseas troops is stationed in Qatar.
Qatar cannot remain neutral when the issues at stake come. Since 2011, Qatar has had a conflict of positions with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the latter of which have also been eye-catching about Qatar's left-right and left-hand interests on the international stage. In 2017, the contradictions between the three countries finally broke out.
This year, the media of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia began a 24-hour non-stop attack on Qatar, and hackers hacked into the official website of the Qatari government, announcing that Qatar had severed diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. On June 5, as hackers disclosed evidence that the UAE intended to invade the official website of the Qatari government and slander Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia began to directly and openly make enemies of Qatar, announcing a blockade of Qatar and severing diplomatic relations!
The UAE has also announced that anyone who sympathizes with Qatar will be sentenced by the UAE to 3-15 years in prison and impose a huge fine. Since then, other Gulf countries have followed suit, and Bahrain, Kuwait and other countries have also announced sanctions against Qatar, banning Qatar's transportation from passing through the country. For a time, Qatari planes and ships could only enter and exit through the territorial waters and airspace of Iran and Iraq.
As if diplomatic attacks were not enough to vent its jealousy and hatred of Qatar, Saudi Arabia announced in April 2018 that it would dig a canal along the Qatar-Saudi border to turn Qatar from a peninsula into an island country, completely isolating Qatar from other countries in the Arabian Peninsula, thereby showing off Qatar's national strength and constituting a psychological deterrent, thereby forcing Qatar to abandon its neutral position and become a political vassal of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The canal is clearly an outlet for Saudi Arabia's outpouring out its own anger at Qatar. Saudi Arabia announced that the Saleva Canal near Qatar would become a recycling center for dumping nuclear waste and garbage, and that the canal itself would be turned into a permanent military zone. Saudi Qahtani, adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, told the Saudi people about the "canal project" that it would turn the "Qatari terrorist state" into an island.
At the same time, in various media controlled by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other countries, they are shouting at Qatar, asking it to abandon its long-standing neutral diplomatic proposition and make peace with them.
Therefore, export Arab culture to the world and strive to be the leader of Arab cultural export. Changing the impression of Middle Eastern countries in countries around the world and improving Qatar's sense of presence and security in the geopolitical pattern has become a major internal reason for Qatar to hold the World Cup.
Results can be miserable (like losing to Ecuador in the opener), but the platoon must be passable.
Note: In the process of writing this article, reference was made to the surging news "Per capita annual income of millions, why is Qatar so rich?" "With an annual income of one million per capita and a company, how can Qatar achieve common prosperity?" ", Zhihu "Qatar, almost became an island country" and other articles, thank you here!
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