Chinese investment in Afghanistan’s lithium sector (2022)
brookings.edu
brookings.edu
Department of Defense report pointing to several trillion dollars worth of minerals (2010): https://www.reuters.com/article/afghanistan-mining-idUSLDE65...
State Department plan for "New Silk Road" (2011): https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/11/cl...
The latter was also about promoting the TAPI pipeline route for moving Central Asian oil and gas directly to the Indian Ocean, a project once meant largely for Chevron and Exxon (major operators in Kazakhstan) exports but which now appears to have been taken over by China:
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/china-joint-statem...
China's approach to obtaining deals in Afghanistan appears to be strictly economic and diplomatic; there are no Chinese soldiers in the region.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2014-01053...
For comparison, this would be like the U.S. government banning the use of Spanish or any other minority language, refusing to print translations of government documents in those languages, etc. Such a policy would certainly generate tension and resentment in areas like the Southwestern USA, and would be hard to characterize as 'liberal'.
Of course, in the context of TAPI and Afghanistan, the Ukraine war is just part of the ongoing struggle over who gets to sell fossil fuels to Europe, i.e. Russian pipeline gas vs USA tanker LNG.
https://www.iri.org/news/national-endowment-for-democracy-ne...
Russia's colonial relationship with the Ukrainian people has been disastrous and it is great to see them fighting against an imperialistic and genocidal regime.
Edit, can’t reply:
Russia’s position is that Crimea and Donbas republics had the right to secede due to the fact that Yanukovych was removed via illegal coup (organized by the US). Ukrainian sovereignty was forfeit when Yanukovych was removed despite insufficient parliamentary votes to do so according to the Ukrainian constitution. The Minsk agreements, meant to resolve these disputes, were not implemented, and now based on statements by European leaders we know they were never intended to be implemented.
What sovereignty does Russia have over Ukraine?
How does one follow from the other?
You're starting from the fact that Russia is more powerful than Ukraine and working backwards to find justifications for genocide.
Has Russia made changes to its constitution illegally? That would be news to me. There is of course a strong argument that the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 was not constitutional based on the results of the referendum.
Typical resource curse place, without even getting to the resource part properly
I also think that is a very odd reading of the US invasion of Afghanistan. Even more so considering that the US has a track record of supporting fascists and terrorists for decades, and will overthrow gov'ts if it means access to natural resources, and greater profits for US corporations.
So China is bribing all the tribes in the area to not "salvage" their stuff for parts? The problem with not having troops in such places is that they're in constant states of near lawlessness toward outsiders.
It would be more correct to say that "there are not yet Chinese soldiers in the region". It's only a matter of time.
There's a solid chance Afghanistan enters a civil war this year or next with the internal divisions between the Kandahar clique and the Haqqani clique starting to become violent, and the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (in reality ex-Taliban from the Mehsud biradari who split due to internal conflicts with the Haqqani biradari) pushing the Taliban out of FATA adjacent regions.
If Mes Aynek actually happens, then Lithium mining would probably start in 10 years too, but other regional rivals recognize that as well (it's telling that India has given a Terrorist designation to just about every major extremist Sunni org in AfPak except the TTP and Jundallah)
The summary: it doesn’t matter what Afghanistan has because the political situation is a mess.
It’s not about who controls Kabul. It’s the social structure of the entire country.
Ik there was always a military presence in Kohat Agency since the British era (Battle of Saranghai for example) but was there a significant increase in presence in the leadup to Zarb-e-Azb, or were levels maintained?
It was a garrison slightly north of Thal. I think it was renamed Fort Gulistan after the 3rd Anglo-Afghan War.
> It’s the social structure of the entire country.
Isn't U.S, Soviet Union and Great Britain who ruined this country for a last century to gain geopolitical space in the middle of Asia?
It became mess after these countries invaded them, let's see if they can recover from that in upcoming 50 years, if they can, we might see another fast growing economy with their resources
The local political structure in the region was always clan driven due to the 300 years of near anarchy in the region stretching from Khorasan to Punjab following the collapse of the Safavid and Mughal Empires.
[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan%E2%80%93Sikh_Wars
[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal%E2%80%93Persian_Wars
(Slight disagreement with the above wiki page - I wouldn't treat Afsharids as Persian)
[2] - https://thediplomat.com/2015/10/300-years-ago-afghanistans-g...
Another good read is “Under The Absolute Amir” by Frank Martin (early 20th century and out of print, probably online somewhere)
He talked about how it was impossible to get the necessary insurance to check for resources.
If you can’t get insurance to check, the rest doesn’t matter.
And we (as westerners) better be prepared to think seriously about Africa, before China, which already started the process, turns a good part of it into one of their bigger development playgrounds.
A typical African country...useless and corrupt.
1- https://www.premiumtimesng.com/regional/nwest/544216-nigeria...
This is nothing new, the same thing happened in Eastern Europe after the fall of comunism.
My country took on many bad loans form the IMF, World Bank, etc. and all that borrowed money went into useless projects of the oligarch owned companies, and to pay off the massive debts, the country was forced to sell of various state assets (oil & gas fields, mines, etc) to western owned enterprises.
It's a form of legal economic colonialism that doesn't involve firing a single bullet. We lend you money we know you won't be able to pay back because we're doing the deal with your corrupt leaders who also get a cut for indebting their country. And when the collection day comes and you can't pay, we'll take everything of value you have and your taxpayers will have to work their butts off to pay the loans. Genius strategy. China is just the latest player to enter this game but the rich west has been playing it for much longer, like Belgium using slaves to extract minerals in Congo.
IMF does conditional loans, so it would ( in theory) improve the country, because something is not going well atm. ( Eg. Greece).
> Greece has repaid ahead of schedule 2.7 billion euros ($2.87 billion) of loans owed to euro zone countries under the first bailout it received during its decade-long debt crisis, a finance ministry official told Reuters on Thursday.15 dec 2022
China loans money and uses their own workers with that money to export their excess infrastructure building capacity. The country itselve doesn't have any benefit for local workers, only China benefits.
All those projects presented with grand prestige by China 5-10 years ago are never mentioned anymore. Nigeria, Pakistan, ...
It's not hard to see why either.
IMF / World banks loans are only given based on various factors which in include the ability to pay the loan back. They don’t take assets.
This is what happened with Sri Lanka. The IMF and World Bank refused loans because they deemed the risk high and chance of loans being paid back low.
China did the loans at a higher rate with projects being won by Chinese companies and forfeit of loans being given assets for 100 year leases.
You can try justify it anyway you want. China loans are debt traps. Plain and simple.
They don't take assets but to get money, they make you sell your assets to the western conglomerates of the western governments they're associated with. Got rich oil & gas fields? Great, because BP, Chevron, Halliburton, Total, Shell and Exxon are waiting in line to buy them below market value. You don't know how deep the corruption rabbit hole goes here.
>Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka was already too broke to be worth it. They have no natural resources for the international loan-sharks to profit off of. China can profit, not monetarily, but they can set up military bases around the Asia-Pacific to challenge the US's position in the region.
>China loans are debt traps. Plain and simple.
IMF & World Bank loans aren't that much different, unless you drank their cool aid. They're still debt traps for the population of those countries no matter how you try to spin it. I know this because I've lived through it and my relative living there are still paying the price. Have you?
The IMF is happy to provide loans that they know can not be paid back, and they routinely allow corrupt officials to get juicy benefits from entering into those deals. The book Confessions of an Economic Hitman is a very sober expose on this process, written by a former IMF official who took part in it.
This is why Chinese construction consortiums in Sri Lanka built infrastructure in Rajapraksa's home district and why a Chinese consortium bought a 49% stake in Hondutel - Honduras's primary mobile provider, which is owned by the family of the husband (and former President) of the current President of Honduras.
American companies used to do this as well (eg. According to a close relative, DEC's India operation would always use MSPs affiliated with senior Indian Air Force officials to land deals. When the US cracked down on such tactics with the amended FCPA in 1998, those contracts went to Israeli companies instead even after the Kargil sanctions were lifted).