It's worth going back a decade and looking at US plans for Afghanistan's mineral wealth during Obama's first term in office, which coincided with increasing US military personnel in the country to 100,000.
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:
TAPI is a pipe dream (pun very much intended). It's been a Pakistani national security goal since the 1990s. As such, it's not surprising that Pakistan's closest ally announced their interest.
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.
Could the American plan be described as "use military force to suppress the terrorist group, and then give money to the legitimate government in exchange for minerals", and the Chinese plan as "give money to the terrorist group in exchange for minerals"?
There wasnt much legitimity in US-backed government, its empire ended at the border of Kabul. More moderate than extremists, but utterly corrupt, from what I read utterly incompetent in governing country properly.
Typical resource curse place, without even getting to the resource part properly
China's plan could just be do business with current gov't rather than invade and install a puppet gov't at an incredible cost to human life. They tend to do business with nations all over the world. They don't comment much on the politics of nations they do business with (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc).
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.
It’s incredible that an illegitimate government can take over the entire country in ten days whereas the legitimate one wasn’t sustainable after twenty years of military and economic support.
Because "Afghanistan" only exists when the tribal autonomy is threatened otherwise Afghanistan has no real central government and it seems there is no will to be centrally governed. A completely different way of life the west continues to not understand. China will divide and conquer as it does in other similar regions just by making it too painful to not take their money when your local competition is.
Didn't much of the conflict in Ukraine from 2014 onwards arise from an effort to treat Russian-speaking Ukrainians as second-class citizens by the newly installed government?
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.
The conflict in Ukraine is caused by Russia's imperialistic and colonial mindset towards the rest of eastern Europe. They invaded because a majority of Ukrainian peoples wanted closer relationships with Europe and to throw off the yoke of Russian authoritarianism.
Are you disputing the results? They seem inline with the article you shared as well as the actions of the Ukrainian people since 2014.
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.
Are you disputing Russia’s position? It seems in line with the actions of the Ukrainians in the Donbas region since 2014.
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.
>Ukrainian sovereignty was forfeit when Yanukovych was removed despite insufficient parliamentary votes to do so according to the Ukrainian constitution.
Without a binding constitution, there is no formal legal basis for a polity and people are free to do as they wish. E.g., join the Russian Federation or constitute themselves as an independent republic.
Even if that was the case, how does that justify Russia's invasion? Russia has made massive changes to its constitution, doesn't that inherently weaken Putin's right to rule by your logic?
You're starting from the fact that Russia is more powerful than Ukraine and working backwards to find justifications for genocide.
They formed and announced a defense pact with the independent Donbas republics, which Ukraine then continued to attack (shelling civilian areas, by the way). So Russia responded militarily in order to provide for the security of the republics in accordance with that agreement. They have not committed genocide whatsoever.
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.
If you didn't read the article - "American anxiety surrounding China’s potential moves in Afghanistan’s mining sector may be misplaced, for now"
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.
There is no investment other than an MoU. Any foreign organization in Afghanistan (in reality Kabul) is operating on a bare bones capacity, and anyone who had the knowhow in Afghanistan has taken asylum, emigrated legally or illegally, or is in the processes of either asylum or emigration.
There most certainly is! But it's on hold right now and the security situation in Logar seems tenuous.
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)
Especially because the lithium
deposits are concentrated in Logar province, which other Pakhtuns stereotype as hicks (which is saying something). It's also adjacent to ISKP's and Pakistani Taliban's heartland - Waziristan and Kohat.
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’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
It was a mess before that as well. Before the Great Game between the Brits and Russians, it was a Great Game between the Sikhs and Durranis [0], and before that between the Mughals and Safavids [1][2] (my Nani traces her heritage to Hindu/Sikh community in Malakand).
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.
Afghanistan has brought numerous superpowers to their knees (Britain, Soviet Union, American), it will be interesting to see if the same thing occurs to the Chinese.
It won't. Investment and occupation aren't the same thing.
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.
China loaned a lot of money to my country (Nigeria). Most of it was spent on bogus infrastructure projects with little yield and siphoned into various levels, and now our debt servicing literally exceeds revenue [1].
The whole point of such investments is to be siphoned. You can't directly pay a bribe (do it enough and at a large enough size and you open yourself to FCPA violations which block access to Western markets by making you toxic and piercing the corporate veil) but you can always loop contracting companies owned by the political elite of your country.
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).
This is not some Chinese invented tactic. China is now doing what the Western powers did to them centuries ago (remember the opium wars).
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.
> 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.
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.
This is an ignorant take. The IMF wants to make loans to put the countries under debt. The debt is then used for political leverage. This has played out again and again for decades.
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.
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?
Opium wars is > 150 years ago, the world has changed a lot since then, lol. We have electricity by now, my opinion takes into account post internet age > 1990.
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, ...
That’s easy to say now, but when in-fighting and an eventual civil war ripple across Afghanistan China will need to either protect their investment with boots on the ground or lose their investment.
Like someone else pointed out in the thread, it was just MOU at this stage. But if past was any guide, they would rather lose their investment than putting boots on the ground (cue Libya, Syria etc).
>The total death toll for American service men in Afghanistan was lower than the murder rate in many American cities.
Well that's good to hear. I was worried more people in the military at war were dying over civilians. /s
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.