With the good offices of the Chinese government, Iran and Saudi Arabia announced on March 10 that they would resume diplomatic relations. The two countries severed diplomatic relations in 2016, when Saudi Arabia executed a Shiite pastor, leading Iranians to attack the Saudi embassy. Today, although the two countries have resumed diplomatic relations, the historical grievances between the two countries are too deep.
Persia is an ancient civilization that was once very glorious in history, and at its peak its territory was close to the territory of China. Between 603 and 629 AD, a series of wars broke out between the Persian and Byzantine empires, leaving both sides defeated. The war also led to a change in international trade routes between Europe and Asia, with merchants avoiding Persia and moving to the Red Sea on the Arabian Peninsula side. Mecca is near the halfway point between Syria and Yemen, so it quickly became prosperous. At that time, the main people living along this trade route were nomadic tribes, and polytheism was universally believed.
Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was born in 569 AD and experienced a midlife crisis when he was around forty years old. One day he suddenly saw an angel coming and asked him to preach. Thus, Muhammad went from being a merchant to a prophet, thus founding Islam. In 632 AD, Muhammad died, and after that, various tribes in Arabia were at odds. It took several civil wars to form a primitive theocratic state in this region. After securing themselves internally, the Arabs began to expand externally.
At that time, the Persian Empire suffered heavy losses in the war with the Byzantine Empire, and the Persian king was subsequently usurped by his son, resulting in four years of civil strife. As a result, the Arabs took advantage of the situation and conquered all of Persia after a series of wars, and the region began to be Islamized. In addition, the expansion of the Arabs also pointed to the West, conquering Egypt in only two years, and then gradually expanding their power over vast areas on the southern shores of the Mediterranean.
The conquest of Persia by the Arabs is somewhat similar to the destruction of the Mongols by the Song Dynasty, where peoples with a low level of civilization defeated a nation with a high level of civilization. However, the Persians looked down on the Arabs in their hearts, believing that the people of these nomadic tribes had little culture. In 680 AD, Sunnis and Shiites parted ways, and the Persians chose Shiites as opposed to the Arabs. Although conflicts occur between religions, disputes within religions tend to be more intense. After Martin Luther began the Reformation, decades of vendettas between Protestants and Catholics led to a one-third reduction in the population of some areas.
Soon after the easing of relations between the two major powers in the Middle East, relations between Japan and South Korea in East Asia also showed a trend of warming. During a March 16 visit to Japan by South Korean President Yoon Seok-hyeok, South Korea dropped its claim for forced labor during World War II. Behind the rapprochement between Japan and South Korea, the United States has made a lot of diplomatic efforts, the purpose of which is, of course, to unite allies and contain China. Of course, one of the main motives for South Korea to lower its stature and reconcile with Japan is to lift the embargo on materials needed by Japan in the semiconductor manufacturing process.
Historically, there have been conflicts between China, Japan, and South Korea, but China and the Korean Peninsula as a whole have close relations, while Japan has been seen as an external threat. In the second half of the 16th century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi ruled Japan after many years of conquest. One way to consolidate power in such a situation is to wage foreign wars to avoid civil strife among local powers. In 1588, Japan began to invade Korea, King Li Yu asked the Ming Dynasty for help, and the Ming general Li Rusong led an army of 40,000 to resist the Yan Dynasty and aid Korea, and after achieving a great victory in Pyongyang, the Ming Dynasty and Japan began to negotiate peace, and the first phase of the war ended in 1595.
In 1597, Japan again sent 140,000 troops to invade Korea, and the Ming Dynasty sent 70,000 troops to aid Korea. The combined Chinese and Korean forces won both on land and at sea, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, distraught, died in August 1598, and the Japanese army withdrew from Korea. Four hundred years later, Japan invaded Korea again, and the Qing government also sent troops to support, resulting in the Sino-Japanese War. Due to China's defeat, Korea lost foreign aid and was annexed by Japan in 1910. Today, Japan and South Korea can be called brothers and sisters, and their biggest threats are ultra-low fertility rates and aging populations, but their involuted culture has no prospect of improvement.