Off topic discussion, I may create a thread with this later.
@Indos bro, its been a while. I want to discuss a topic, but not sure what section to put the thread and also not sure if I have the time to maintain the thread. Its about what side Muslim countries should choose when you have to choose between China and the West or should we stay somewhere in between. Of course one size does not fit all, every country has their own unique situation, but there is some common thread.
Earlier my feeling was that we should choose China, because the West has done us so much harm in the past, colonizing us and destroying our countries, with China we do not have this history. There is Xinjiang, but it is a small matter compared with the well being of billions of people. But lately looking at current events, it seems democracy is more and more the only hope for the rise of different Muslim countries who want to reach their true development potentials and also achieve more unity on world stage. Not that the West always support democracy, but in principle they agree that all people and countries should be democratic. As long as the Chinese CPC survives and there is no democracy in China, we will never have support for democracy in our countries from China. So this clearly puts Muslim countries and China in a collision course, as they will tend to support more authoritarian regimes which is against the national interest of these countries.
Here is list of status of democracy in Muslim countries:
Islamic democracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia are all great examples of how democracy and development go hand in hand. We can see how Russia, a pseudo democratic authoritarian regime is siding with dictators like Assad. We can see how monarchies are overthrowing democratically elected regimes like Morsi in Egypt and replacing them with dictators like Sisi. We can also see Gulf monarchies hijack Syria democratic movement funding extremism and eventually giving rise to ISIS. Salafism from the Saudi regime from the days of Abdul Wahab has been one of the tragedies within Sunni Islamic world. The British have used them and then later the US have used them and this regime is still protected by the US, even when a Salafi offshoot like ISIS becomes a monster and tries to devour its own creator, the Gulf monarchies and their Salafi ideologues. Here in South Asia we can see a paradox like a democratic India working to destroy democracy in their neighbor Muslim country Bangladesh just so they can put their favorite dictator in power and the West looking the other way and paying lip service about democracy.
In short, it seems all Muslims countries need democracy to move forward and China is not going to help us with that. The West however will selectively support democracy as long as it serves their interest. If a united and democratic Sunni Muslim world sides with the West in the coming conflict between China and the West, then I think it will be possible to convince Western strategists about how both democracy and unity within Sunni Muslim world can become a western alliance pillar, despite our past mutual bad experience.