Most of Qatar's territory in the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula is surrounded by the Persian Gulf, with only the southern region bordering Saudi Arabia. Qatar covers an area of 11,521 square kilometers and has a population of 2.64 million as of 2018. What is this concept? As of 2018, the area of Beijing in China is 16410.54 square kilometers, with a population of 21.542 million, which means that qatar's area is only about 70% of Beijing's and its population is only about 12% of Beijing's. The 2.64 million people are not citizens of Qatari nationality, but also foreign workers who live here. In fact, there are only more than 400,000 real Qatari citizens.
It is such a large Qatar that is not a city in China, but it has created a total GDP of 167.605 billion US dollars, ranking 55th in more than 200 countries and regions in the world, and the per capita GDP is ranked first in the world for many years, as early as 2010, Qatar's per capita national income has exceeded 90,000 US dollars. Qatar implements free medical care and education throughout the country, carnegie Mellon University, HEC Paris, Cornell University Will School of Medicine, Texas A&M University School of Engineering, Virginia State University School of Arts, University College London and other European and American schools have their own branches in Cartel, which allows Qatari citizens to attend world-class universities right on their doorstep.
It is worth mentioning that Qatar's social welfare policy is not solely for its own citizens, but for the 2.64 million permanent residents living in its territory. The hosting of the 2006 Asian Games in Doha and the 2011 Asian Cup football tournament has enhanced the influence of cartels in the international sports world. At 23:38 on December 2, 2010, Qatar won the right to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, making Qatar the first country in the Middle East to receive the right to host the World Cup, and the third Asian country to receive the right to host the World Cup after the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea. At the beginning of the 20th century, However, Qatar was not as prosperous as it is today.
Qatar has a tropical desert climate with hot, dry and scarce precipitation all year round: the average annual precipitation of only 75.2 mm is not only no natural water source on the surface, but also very scarce groundwater resources. Qatar, which lacks fresh water resources, has a natural and serious disadvantage in industrial and agricultural production, so historically Qatar has not been able to form a long-standing indigenous civilization like Mesopotamia, the Iranian plateau, the Nile Valley and other places, and only a few nomadic tribes have lived here in the long ancient history. It was not until the 7th century AD that it became part of the Arab Empire. After the division and disintegration of the Arab Empire, it became a place of geopolitical power competition until it was conquered by the Ottoman Turkish Empire in 1555.
Qatar established the Emirate of Qatar after 291 years of Ottoman rule by the Sheikh of an Arab tribe, Sani bin Mohammed. In 1882 the British invaded Qatar, and in 1916 the British forced the Chief of Qatar to accept the terms of becoming a British protectorate. In 1971 Qatar broke away from British colonial rule and became an independent sovereign state. After independence, Qatar was nominally constitutional monarchy, with the emir (i.e. the king) acting as head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, hereditary to the Al Thani family and with the assistance of the Cabinet and consultative councils. Although the Cabinet and the Consultative Council were nominally "independent", the Cabinet consisted entirely of members of the Royal Family.
Although the Consultative Council had the power to consider legislation and make policy recommendations to the Cabinet, all 35 of its members were appointed by the Amir. Although Qatar has a written constitution compared to Saudi Arabia, a neighboring country that openly practices absolute monarchy, it prohibits any political party activities, and citizen elections are even more extravagant, in fact, Qatar's "constitutional monarchy" is just a cover. On 22 February 1972, The first emir of Qatar after independence, Ahmed, was deposed, his cousin Khalifa became the emir, and Khalifa's son Hamad became crown prince and minister of defence. Don't look at Qatar as a small country, but it is also divided into different tribes.
After Khalifa's coup to power, he tried to monopolize Qatar's most important oil and gas resources. This provoked opposition from some tribal leaders in Qatar at the time, and Khalifa threw the man who opposed him the most at the time into prison and exiled the man's family to Kuwait. Khalifa tried to warn his opponents, but he did not expect that in a few years the man's daughter would change his country. The man's daughter was named Moza. At the age of 15, Moza was able to return to his homeland. At the age of 18, Moza studied sociology at Qatar University. During his college years, Moza met the then Crown Prince Hamad. Hamad, who fell in love with Moza at first sight, immediately embarked on a fervent pursuit.
It is impossible for any woman to turn a blind eye to the pursuit of a crown prince, but it was the crown prince's father who sent Moza's father to prison, and the crown prince had an official princess before that, so Moza was only a side concubine in the past. Under normal logic, the crown princess will become the queen after the crown prince succeeds to the throne, while Moza is still just an ordinary concubine. Moreover, it is not possible to marry or not to marry: when King Harry of France learned that his crown prince was going to marry the daughter of his enemy, he naturally objected vigorously. So whether the marriage will succeed depends on two preconditions: whether Moza will marry Hamad, and whether King Harry Will let up.
The story is not the "palace fight" of dog blood as imagined: Moza does not rely on a vase of beauty, and Hamad is not a stepping stone for Moza. Hamad was a prominent figure at Qatar University when he visited the university. It was from then on that Hamad was captivated by her unique temperament. Hamad, who was educated in the West from childhood, was not a mother-in-law who was tainted with the bad habits of many royal aristocrats, but a military general who was committed to reform. Moza also had a belief in changing the country, so Hamad became a companion in her heart. Moza knew that as soon as he married into the royal family, he would be one step closer to his goal.
Moza did not hesitate to accept Hamad's marriage proposal, and the old king was unable to defeat his son in the end, so Moza became the second wife of Qatar's Crown Prince Hamad, and her name became Sheikh Moza. Although King Harry of France agreed to the marriage, he could not have been wary of Sheikh Moza, the daughter of the enemy. The precondition for King Harry's consent to the marriage was that Moza's relatives would not appear at the wedding, and that the Crown Prince's main chamber would escort her at the wedding in place of Moza's mother. Princess Moza, as her father-in-law Khalifa, warned her when she first entered the royal family: "You had better know your place."
Besides his father-in-law, Khalifa, the most hostile to Moza is probably Hamad's lady in the main chamber. Hamad and Lady Masamune were typical of political marriages: the crown princess had a powerful family, but the prince Hamad did not like her. It was precisely because of this that the crown princess was particularly jealous of Moza. The Crown Princess once mocked Moza's origins: "Rough grains of sand cannot cultivate shining pearls, and you should go to prison to accompany your poor father." Moza responded, "How do the vultures of the wasteland know how to appreciate pearls?" I will prove to you that the palace is the best place for me to stay." Moza, who married into the enemy family alone, was in a nervous mood, but she knew that forbearance was her only choice.
Moza's life did not appear in the TV series of Dog Blood Palace Fight Bridge: she never let herself fall into a dispute with Hamad's other wives after marrying into the royal family. She knew that she not only wanted to be the mistress of the house, but also to grasp the true identity and power of a princess of a country. Women in the religious Middle East are so restricted that saudi arabia allowed women to drive on the road in the first two years. Qatar, a saudi neighbor, is also a religious country, but Moza has maintained his maverick style since the day he married into the royal family. Her independence and strength made the crown prince treat her even more differently.
Although Moza never took the initiative to compete with Hamad's other wives for favor, it was her maverick style that made Hamad more fond of her, so Hamad took Moza with him every time he traveled. Moza's generosity and good fashion tastes have sparkled among the women of the Middle East who have been suppressed to death by entrenched traditions. While other Middle Eastern women wrapped themselves tightly in veils, Moza was recognized worldwide as a fashionista: Vanity Fair magazine named her the best-dressed woman of 2015. Pearling is an important industry in Qatar. When another pearl-gathering season came, Moza keenly captured the fashion trends of the Gulf countries.
Moza advocated the processing of inexpensive household goods with color-colored pearls, thus opening up a new field of pearl sales. Thus Moza began to venture into the pearling industry. Once she found a natural black pearl. Since his father-in-law, Khalifa, loved pearls alone, Moza used the pearls to get $1 million from him. The $1 million became the first pot of gold on Moza's commercial road: Moza used the money to start artificial pearl farming. Moza gradually gained his voice in the patriarchal Middle East. She began to become Qatar's spokesperson in international politics and the most irreplaceable woman in the eyes of Crown Prince Hamad.
Later, in order to appease a tribe in the country, King Hafali demanded that Crown Prince Hamad conclude another political marriage. Hamad agreed to remarry, but at the same time he offered moza the post of crown prince's chairman of family affairs, with full responsibility for managing his finances and investments. Thus Moza began to recruit: she set up the first private investment group of the royal family, with herself as president, and began to operate in a real sense of the word. By this time Moza had amassed a wealth of money, but her and her husband's ideal of reforming the country had not yet been realized. On 27 June 1995, Hamad, with moza's support, seized the position of Emir in a coup d'état while his father Khalifa was on vacation in Geneva, Switzerland.
At this time, Sheikh Moza was no longer the wife behind her husband, but the royal princess who really stood by her husband's side. She can finally rescue her father, who has been imprisoned for many years, and at the same time, she can use her identity as a princess to realize her and her father's ideals: to reform the country more modernly. Hamad's first reforms since taking office were free health care for all and free education for all. Qatar's high welfare is based on huge oil revenues. Qatar, like Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, has made a fortune from oil exports. Qatar, like other Oil Producers in the Middle East, has a heart problem – that is, sooner or later, oil and gas resources will be exhausted.
Sheikh Moza proposed early on: "Oil and gas will one day run out." We should now exchange oil for dollars and dollars for investment and appreciation. When one day our investments are spread all over the world, we will not only ensure the long-term welfare of the people, but also break the shackles of a small country." Qatar has made large-scale overseas investments to prepare for the day when oil and gas resources are exhausted in the future, which has exceeded $350 billion so far, and Qatar is also focusing on tourism development like Dubai. In the process, Qatar established the National Investment Authority, in which Sheikh Moza served as an important head.
When the real estate industry was still in its infancy, Moza bought a large number of properties from London South to North London for $15.8 billion. Later, her forward-looking vision proved to be correct: she knew how to exchange the least amount of money for the most value-added space. In addition to real estate, she also targets artworks with huge appreciation space: Moza visits several European galleries and museums. When she returned to Qatar, she paid a total of $400 million for a trip to Europe. Moza hoarded back a bunch of works by artists who were controversial at the time. This shocked Hamad so much that he rarely criticized the princess: "You are spending the money of the state." If $400 million buys back a pile of garbage, then we will not escape condemnation."
Moza comforted her husband in a chest: "If the judgment is wrong, then I will pay compensation privately." Moza's investments around the world include$15.8 billion in London property, $1.9 billion in Manchester United football teams, $1 billion in Italy's Valentino, $900 million in London Olympic Village. Moza is also preparing to build an art museum in the capital, Doha. Hamad did not understand Moza's act of building a top museum to house his paintings, but Moza insisted on doing what he thought was right: she hired the world's top designers to build an art museum in Doha, the capital of Qatar. By 2010, the tiny country of Qatar had four world-class art galleries.
Qatar began to increase the construction of infrastructure such as art galleries and gymnasiums. This has enabled Qatar to have more and more tourism resources, and Qatar has begun to use these venues to hold international art and sports activities, thus greatly enhancing its international influence and popularity. Moza not only promoted Qatar's economic development, but also established the National Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. Moza brings world-class school resources to Qatar. The ambitious and ambitious princess's next goal is to hope that Qatar's young people will receive the best education in the world on their doorstep.
In 2008, King Hamad adopted the Qatar Vision 2030 to include an emphasis on education and research in its national strategic plan, with the expectation of nurturing Gulf talents to meet the challenges of the times under the treacherous geopolitics and globalization. In 2012 Moza announced the creation of an institution called "Educating Children". The agency provides quality education in the form of a matching fund to 61 million children around the world who do not have access to basics. In just a few months, the agency has supported 25 projects reaching 5 million children in countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. As Qatar grew economically wealthy, the idea of increasing its influence in the international political arena grew.
Qatar is a small country: it has neither a complete industrial system nor a strong army. Although Qatar has managed to join the club of rich countries thanks to the huge dividends of oil exports, Qatar also knows that oil and gas resources will one day be exhausted, so it cannot only sell oil to enhance its influence in the international political arena. In February 1996, Qatar established Al Jazeera, an international, Arab-oriented, global media outlet. Qatar is trying to build Al Jazeera into a tool for exporting cultures to the outside world, thereby increasing its visibility and presence in international affairs.
After the 9/11 incident, Al Jazeera attracted widespread attention around the world for repeatedly taking the lead in broadcasting video statements by bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders. However, it is precisely because of the existence of Al Jazeera that Qatar's relations with other Arab countries have become sharper: when other Middle Eastern television stations are either preaching or filming royal living, Qatar Al Jazeera frequently broke out that "Iran is an Islamic power that cannot be ignored, and it is unwise to be hostile to Iran" and "polygamy is a bad habit that should be eliminated with the development of the times", which can cause explosive impact in Islamic countries, and even once even launched a statement about It." whether Islam will hinder social progress" discussion.
In 2011, there were political upheavals in various countries in the Middle East. At this time, Qatar's Al Jazeera tv actively reported on the turmoil in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and other countries, which made Qatar regarded by the Middle East countries as a stirring stick that stirred up trouble and fueled the waves. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries have banned Qatar's Al Jazeera, which is actually a fear that Qatar's Al Jazeera propaganda will endanger the foundation of its own rule. Qatar, which has been committed to enhancing its international visibility and influence in 2017, has finally made headlines in international news: since June 5 of this year, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Maldives and Mauritius have announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Qatar.
On the one hand, these countries have gradually restricted or even severed sea, land and air ties with Qatar; on the other hand, countries have expelled Qatari diplomats, and Qatari citizens within the country have also been required to leave the country within the prescribed time limit. The severance of diplomatic relations has suddenly turned Qatar, which has rarely appeared in international political news, into one of the global hot spots. One of the triggers for this severance was Al Jazeera. Another important reason is Qatar's relationship with Iran: the vast majority of countries in the Middle East are Sunni Arab states, whereas Iran is an Islamic Shia state with Persians as the dominant ethnic group.
The divergent struggle between the two factions has lasted for thousands of years. Iran is isolated and marginalized by Arab countries for ethnic and religious reasons. However, Qatar, as an Arab Sunni country, has always maintained relatively close diplomatic relations with Iran, because Qatar and Iran have the economic interest of jointly developing the world's largest South Pasir gas field, and the close relationship between Qatar and Iran is naturally not tolerated by other Arab Sunni countries. On the one hand, Qatar has a common interest with Iran in jointly developing the South Pasir gas field, and on the other hand, Qatar has always believed that it would be unwise to offend Iran, a regional power in the Middle East.
Qatar itself is a small country that only borders Saudi Arabia, so Saudi Arabia has become a major country in the Middle East with a deep influence on Qatar. Saudi Arabia is actually the protectorate of Qatar is the big brother, while Qatar is the vassal state of Saudi Arabia is the younger brother. Saudi Arabia, as a country with relatively strong territory, population, economy and military strength in the Middle East, has actually been seeking the position of the boss of the Middle East, and it is Iran that has formed a competitive and antagonistic relationship with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, which has always regarded itself as the leader of the Sunni Arab league, naturally cannot tolerate Qatar' little brother and its rival Iran. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the surrounding Gulf countries such as Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain have almost all been able to rank among the world's richest countries by relying on rich oil resources.
The Gulf Arab States and other Arab countries such as Iraq, Syria, and Egypt are economically rich and generally pro-American in politics. However, Saudi Arabia, which regards itself as the owner of the Gulf alliance, has been trying to play the role of an intermediary in the diplomatic relations between the Gulf countries and the United States, that is to say, Saudi Arabia hopes that the Gulf countries will develop diplomatic relations with the United States through itself, but Qatar has been trying to develop its own independent diplomatic relations with the United States, which makes Saudi Arabia, which regards itself as the owner of the Gulf alliance, feel like a thorn in the back. After the political upheavals in the Middle East in 2011, Arab countries generally regardEda Al Jazeera as a stirring stick to stir up trouble.
Qatar's Al Jazeera behavior is actually supported by the Qatari government, which has in fact personally gone shirtless to support opposition forces such as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. As early as 2014, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and other countries recalled their ambassadors to Qatar to protest Qatar's interference in their own internal affairs. Among them, Saudi Arabia, which has always regarded itself as the leader of the Gulf alliance, is particularly annoyed by Qatar's practice of disturbing the situation in the Middle East, so it has joined forces with other Middle Eastern countries that are also dissatisfied with Qatar to launch a wave of severance of diplomatic relations with Qatar. Saudi Arabia not only single-handedly directed the drama of the severance of diplomatic relations between Arab countries and Qatar, but also once gathered 100,000 troops to prepare to attack Qatar.
At this time, the United States quickly stepped forward and urgently stopped Saudi Arabia, which was preparing to use force. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf Arab countries are all allies of the United States. In order to safeguard its geopolitical interests in the Middle East, the United States cannot allow these little brothers to fight on their own. Saudi Arabia still needs to rely on the strength of the United States in the geopolitical game with Iran, so when it comes to the boss's intervention, it has to let Qatar go first. Although a military conflict between Saudi Arabia and Qatar has been avoided, diplomatic relations between them remain tense: the two sides have nearly cut off all contact. It wasn't until 2021 that the relationship between the two sides changed.
After more than three years of closure, the Saudi and Qatari road crossings were finally reopened on January 10, 2021: Saudi Arabia reopened its airspace, land and sea routes to Qatar. At this point, the two sides began to be able to re-engage. Of course, the ice-breaking thawing of Saudi Arabia-Qatar relations is only the first step in planning a transformation in the context of the rigidity of bilateral relations. As the saying goes, "the enemy is easy to settle" – both sides are only trying to find compromises, but neither side is struggling to change its domestic political positions and diplomatic strategies. Developing independent diplomatic relations with the United States and maintaining relatively friendly relations with Iran are essentially Qatar's attempts to challenge Saudi leadership.
As Qatar grows more economically wealthy, Qatar also increasingly wants to exert greater influence in international affairs: on the one hand, Qatar actively hosts international events such as the Asian Games, the Asian Cup, and the World Cup, and on the other hand, it supports the Palestinian resistance movement "Hamas" that occupies the Gaza region. Qatar's series of actions are actually aimed at enhancing its international influence, but Saudi Arabia is not willing to give up its dominance over the Gulf Arab countries. Friction is bound to occur between Big Brother and the new challenger. Qatar, of course, knows that it is unable to challenge Saudi Arabia on its own, so leveraging force has become a realistic choice for Qatar.
The forces that Qatar can rely on are mainly the United States and Iran. The reason why Qatar bypassed Saudi Arabia to develop independent diplomacy with the United States was to weaken Saudi Arabia's control over itself, and Saudi Arabia's old rival Iran was also seen by Qatar as a force to be used. Although Qatar is in a different camp with Iran as an ally of the United States, Qatar has long maintained a delicate relationship with Iran compared to other Gulf Arab countries: Qatar and Iran have a common interest in jointly developing the South Pasir gas field, while Qatar also wants to use Iran's power to contain Saudi Arabia. In the future, the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Qatar will continue to be affected by the Iranian factor.
Saudi Arabia, which considers itself a Sunni ally, has always regarded Iran as the biggest threat to regional security. Qatar prefers to balance the influence of two regional powers, Iran and Saudi Arabia: Iran and Saudi Arabia are significantly stronger than Qatar in their overall national strength. As a small country, Qatar can only protect its own interests to the greatest extent by maintaining a balance between the big countries, otherwise it will become a subordinate little brother of one of the big countries. Qatar's economy relies heavily on the development of the South Pars oil and gas fields. If Qatar wants to ensure the safety of gas development, then maintaining relations with Iran is an inevitable option. Qatar's national interests dictate that only Saudi Arabia and Iran can be balanced as much as possible.
Qatar, which was deeply involved in the severance of diplomatic relations, received great assistance from Iran: on the one hand, Iran called out to Arab countries to end the total blockade of Qatar, and on the other hand, it provided Qatar with a steady supply of fruits, vegetables and meat by sea and air. The materials that Iran aided Qatar at that time were actually not valuable, but in the isolated state of Qatar at that time, it was undoubtedly an act of sending charcoal in the snow. The icing on the cake may be diluted by time, but the charcoal in the snow is often impressive. The war situation after the U.S. airstrikes in Iraq killed Iranian general Suleimani seemed to be on the verge of breaking out.
At this time, many countries did not dare to deal with Iran out of fear of the United States. Qatar, as an Arab Sunni state and an ally of the United States, seems to have avoided suspicion at this time, but the Qatari king personally visited Tehran at this time and sent aid to Iran. Qatar's ties with Iran have caused headaches for the United States and Saudi Arabia: Qatar has always had relatively close ties with Iran among the Gulf Arab states. After two crises in 2017 and 2020, the ties between Qatar and Iran have been further deepened: qatar now not only has economic cooperation with Iran in jointly developing oil and gas fields, but also has exchanges at the military level between the two countries.