Ma Haiyun

Ma Haiyun

Associate Professor, Frostburg State University

Ma Haiyun is associate professor of Frostburg State University's Department of History. He is also the president of Zhenghe Forum that focuses on China-Muslim world relations. His scholarly work examines the history of Islam in China, as well as China’s relations with the Islamic world. His articles, reviews, and opinion have appeared in Foreign Policy, Late Imperial China, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, China Brief, and others. He is often sought by news outlets for commentaries on China, Asia, or Middle East topics, and has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, BBC, The Nation, Deutsche Welle, Associated Press, and The Independent.

Demonstrators take part in a march in support of Palestinians in Boston, Massachusetts, US, on 17 December 2023. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP)

How Israel-Hamas war has revived debate on the clash of civilisations

Both Hamas and Israel have framed their war over Palestinian national independence as religious and civilisational, says academic Ma Haiyun. This seems to fit into Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilisations” theory, even though to define Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a cultural fault line war is historically, religiously and intellectually untrue. Such rhetoric is dangerous, especially when talk of religious wars is turning into reality, and the US’s “Israel first” policy is undermining US diplomacy, soft power, reputation, and most importantly, international institutions such as the UN that the US has sustained after World War II.
This handout picture provided by the Iranian foreign ministry shows Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (left) shaking hands with Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan (right) and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang (centre) during a meeting in Beijing on 6 April 2023. (Iranian Foreign Ministry/AFP)

China's Saudi-Iran deal only a defensive response to Western security challenges

Academic Ma Haiyun explains how the Saudi-Iran detente is the experiment and application of China’s GSI with a focus on national and regime security, when Saudi Arabia, Iran and China have been facing increasing security challenges from the US and the West.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman welcomes Chinese President Xi Jinping in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 8 December 2022. (Saudi Press Agency/Handout via Reuters)

Xi's Saudi visit: Middle powers uniting in a hierarchical world

Amid the US-West realignment, developing countries and middle powers have strengthened mutual cooperation via high-level diplomacy. China’s deepening relations with Saudi Arabia and the Arab world as seen by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent high-profile visit to Riyadh is a key sign of this development.
In this photo taken on 18 February 2022, a Taliban fighter stands guard at the entrance gate of the Afghan-Iran border crossing bridge in Zaranj, Afghanistan. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP)

Afghanistan's role in changing the power balance in Eurasia

Afghanistan has proved to be a quagmire, whether for the British, Russians or Americans. While it seems that the US exit leaves a power vacuum eagerly filled by regional challengers, Afghanistan’s unique set of attributes seems to be running strategic stakeholders ragged. In the event, the Afghan exception could offer lessons for constraining rivals in other spheres such as the Taiwan Strait.
Taliban fighters gather along a street during a rally in Kabul, Afghanistan on 31 August 2021. (Hoshang Hashimi/AFP)

The future of China-Afghanistan relations: Lessons from history

Ma Haiyun asserts that parallels between current events and Afghan geopolitics in the mid to late 18th century reveal the complexity of Afghanistan’s historical relations and the delicacy of contemporary Afghan-China relations. Even if an economy-for-security approach is used, various conditions will need to be met as China and other countries tread lightly.
This handout photograph taken on 2 May 2021 and released by Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense shows US soldiers and Afghan National Army soldiers raising Afghanistan's national flag during a handover ceremony to the Afghan National Army army 215 Maiwand corps at Antonik camp in Helmand province, Afghanistan. (Afghanistan Ministry of Defense/AFP)

Could China send peacekeeping troops to Afghanistan?

The US may implicitly have been targeting China when it indicated its plans to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan completely by 11 September 2021, thereby necessitating regional players to get more involved. If there is a UN peacekeeping mission, China may well join in to guard against spillover security threats to Xinjiang, but its precise involvement may complicate matters.
In this file photo taken on 28 November 2008, US Army soliders from 1-506 Infantry Division set out on a patrol in Paktika province, situated along the Afghan-Pakistan border. (David Furst/AFP)

Biden may need China’s help in Afghanistan

One solution that ended the Vietnam war may provide some lessons for bringing the Afghan war to an end during Biden’s presidency. Forty years ago, the Nixon administration played the China card, enabling Washington to leave the Vietnam war. In the present, a replica of a Vietnam-inspired exodus — one moderated by China and its ally Pakistan — is worth pursuing. China has built relations with all of Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries and has the capacity to build a regional infrastructure and economic network. US academic Ma Haiyun explores the possibilities.
Yemenis protest against the United Arab Emirates and the Southern Transitional Council (STC) in the country's city of Taez on 24 June 2020, after the STC's southern separatists seized control of the strategic island of Socotra. (Ahmad Al-Basha/AFP)

Shifting alliances in the Middle East: Countering the China threat with an Indian Ocean triangle

With an agreement signed recently between Israel and the UAE to normalise relations, Middle East experts detect a shift in focus in the Middle East and North Africa region. Issues in the future will revolve around the divide between the Arabs, Israelis and Americans on one side and Iran on the other. Enter China, who, with its recent upgrade in relations with Iran, as well as interests in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean, could up the ante in the region against the backdrop of US-China tensions.
Iranian-Americans protest China's bypassing of US sanctions in doing business with Iran, as well as what they believe as the handing over of Kish island in the Persian Gulf to China in exchange for military, regional and international support, in front of the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles, California on 10 July 2020. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP)

Deepening China-Iran relations could change global geopolitics

Following The New York Times’ report that China and Iran are about to conclude a mega investment-for-oil deal, speculations have gone into overdrive about the US sending Iran into the arms of China with its recent hostile policies towards both countries. Ma Haiyun looks at the implications of ever-closer relations between China and Iran and argues that if strategic partnerships weave a web of interconnectivity between countries that are both on the Indo-Pacific rim and Eurasian continent, global geopolitics would be fundamentally changed.