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It is said that with a piece of cloth on my head, I am the richest in the world! So why is Yemen so poor?

author:Extraterritorial Historical Records
It is said that with a piece of cloth on my head, I am the richest in the world! So why is Yemen so poor?

▲Image source/network

The Gulf countries of the Middle East are very rich, rich and flowing oil. These countries are due to oil wealth, which the Arabs believe is a gift from Allah because they are very religious.

In fact, from the discovery of geographical resources to the countries of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East, they have gradually become independent.

After the 30s, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other countries discovered oil one after another, and Western capital poured in rapidly, thus bringing huge wealth.

However, there is a special case among the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, and that is Yemen. Because the rest of the Arab world is rich, but this country is poor. Despite its 33rd largest oil reserves, Yemen's domestic tranquility and national affluence came later than any other country.

In the 1930s, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait all discovered oil.

It was only in 1984 that oil was discovered in North Yemen. It is 54 years later than other countries, and Yemen is a country that has been in a civil war for a long time, and the whole country is not at peace.

It's not just the social unrest in North Yemen, it's the social chaos in South Yemen as well.

In 1963, a large-scale armed struggle took place in South Yemen with the support of the Soviet Union. After World War II, Britain's strength was greatly weakened, and it was no longer able to carry out colonial rule.

Finally, in 1967, Britain was forced to evacuate South Yemen, and South Yemen became independent. However, the independence of South Yemen was not dominated by North Yemen, but by the Soviet Union. As a result, North Yemen and South Yemen have been established as separate republics, which also opens a window into the volatile situation in Yemen, that is, the confrontation between North and South Yemen.

On November 30, 1970, with the support of the Soviet Union, South Yemen was renamed the Democratic People's Republic of Yemen, with its capital in Aden and implementing a socialist system.

At this time, the leaders of South Yemen were entangled in how to deal with the relations between Arab countries, and whether to tilt their policy direction towards the Soviet Union.

At this time, internal divisions arose, and as a result, there were three coups d'état. These include the 113 events that shocked the world in 1980, when high-level clashes broke out in South Yemen and several senior leaders were killed.

A large-scale civil war ensued, which had a great impact on China. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, due to some wars and turmoil around the world, we will arrange for the evacuation of overseas Chinese, and the first overseas evacuation of New China was the evacuation of overseas Chinese from South Yemen.

With more than 30,000 dead and wounded, and more than 30,000 refugees, Yemen has made matters worse.

In the mid-to-late 1980s, the world landscape changed. In particular, after Gorbachev came to the Soviet Union, he carried out various kinds of liberalization.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and other countries with relatively good relations with the Soviet Union were greatly affected, such as South Yemen, which could not survive without strong aid. So he took the initiative to seek a solution to his own problems, so he asked North Yemen to sit down and negotiate with him.

After negotiations, the two sides made corresponding concessions, and on May 22, 1990, North and South Yemen were merged and unified into the Republic of Yemen.

According to the agreement signed between the two sides, Yemen is headed by the leader of North Yemen and vice president is the leader of South Yemen, and after years of civil war and political disagreements, the country has finally become peaceful and the economy is on the right track.

Although Yemen is independent, it is only superficially independent. In this merger, it is not that South Yemen annexed North Yemen, but that South Yemen merged with North Yemen in the form of a merger, and the capital Sana'a was originally the capital of North Yemen.

As a result, North Yemen is in a strong position, and the discovery of oil in North Yemen is earlier than that of South Yemen, so such a merger has brought about huge social and economic differences between the North and the South, and the differences between the two sides are getting bigger and bigger.

It is said that with a piece of cloth on my head, I am the richest in the world! So why is Yemen so poor?

▲Image source/network

In fact, the two sides also went their own way, and in particular, both the north and the south retained their original armies and listened to their respective governments, and did not realize the nationalization of the armed forces and the unification of the armed forces. The apparent reunification was only a ceasefire agreement, which laid the groundwork for the future division of North and South Yemen again.

As the distribution of power between the leaders of the North and the South and the polarization of interests between the North and the South intensifies, Yemen's chronic poverty and chaos have led to the rise of a large number of tribal and religiously based local powers. This tribal consciousness is far beyond the national consciousness.

In 1994, the civil war began again, and in the end the North won to reunify Yemen, but this time it still did not lead to full and substantial unity.

In 2011, another civil war broke out in Yemen, overthrowing Saleh's 33-year rule. Unwilling to lose his power, Saleh formed an alliance with the Houthis against the new Yemeni government. And so Yemen was once again mired in civil war.

The Houthis were truly capable of fighting, not only winning the Saudi coalition, but also capturing the capital Sana'a in September 2014, forcing the interim government to move to the interim capital, Aden.

The civil war has not stopped to this day, and in the face of the deteriorating security situation in this civil war, our country has also launched an evacuation operation.

The long-term political chaos and civil war have caused panic in Yemen, infrastructure construction lags far behind other peninsular countries, and foreign funds, personnel and technology have been withdrawn from the war, which has seriously affected oil extraction and the economy is in shambles.

In fact, the whole geographical environment of Yemen is very good, but it cannot be used rationally, and no one wants to dock cargo ships in a war-torn country.

It is said that with a piece of cloth on my head, I am the richest in the world! So why is Yemen so poor?

▲Image source/network

Aden, the capital of Yemen, was once an internationally famous seaport, but now it is declining, because the chaos in Yemen has made the Gulf of Aden waters lack effective government management all year round, so there are many pirates in the Gulf of Aden, and the main personnel of the pirates in the Gulf of Aden are Yemeni.

Yemen is the gateway of the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, and is known as the key point of maritime communication in Europe, Asia and Africa.

The city of Aden overlooks the Indian Ocean and is also the most important port city in southern Yemen. Located at the junction of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, Aden has a very mild climate, clear waters, coral reefs, and can also be used as a deep-water port for normal operations throughout the year.

Historically, the port of Aden has a history of 3,000 years. Once a hub for the ancient spice trade, Aden was once controlled by the Turkish Empire and the British.

Aden is very important to Yemen, and it is also very important to Saudi Arabia, because Saudi Arabia's oil exports are often through the Strait of Hormuz, and before the reconciliation, Iran's relations with Saudi Arabia were not very good, and Iran often clamored for the Strait of Hormuz to be blocked.

Saudi Arabia has always wanted to choose oil exports from the port of Aden in Yemen and want to build an oil pipeline to Aden, but there is a perennial war here, even if Saudi Arabia sends coalition forces to Yemen to fight the Houthis, it will not win, let alone repair the pipeline.

After so many years of civil war, Yemen's development has become more and more backward compared with other countries in the Middle East. Moreover, Yemen's oil resources are far inferior to Saudi Arabia's, and it is mainly agricultural.

Local forces are very strong, which has left Yemen in a situation of poverty and backwardness. This fully proves that without a relatively peaceful and stable internal development environment and a relatively harmonious external exchange environment, it will be difficult for a country to extricate itself from the fate of poverty and backwardness, even if it is rich in resources.

End of this article.

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