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Afghanistan

Orphia Nay

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Orphia Nay
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Will China step in to develop its Belt and Road initiative, and to mine precious metals?

What influence will Russia have?

How will the Taliban behave to the people of Afghanistan?

What is happening there now?
 
I predict: China will move in and create mining towns, staffed by Chinese, isolated from the locals.
This will lead sooner rather than later to friction and violence.
China might hire Russian mercs to help, which will escalate the situation further.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
I predict: China will move in and create mining towns, staffed by Chinese, isolated from the locals.
This will lead sooner rather than later to friction and violence.
China might hire Russian mercs to help, which will escalate the situation further.
Click to expand...

Doubt it - they'll do what they usually do import the needed experts and hire locals via the local "leaders". What you must bear in mind is that unlike the "western" countries China has no interest in the internal workings of a country (if it doesn't get in their way).
 
Darat said:
Doubt it - they'll do what they usually do import the needed experts and hire locals via the local "leaders". What you must bear in mind is that unlike the "western" countries China has no interest in the internal workings of a country (if it doesn't get in their way).
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that's sure what they'd like to do. but given the experience in Africa, Chinese enclaves get the hate pretty quick, mostly because they do nothing to bring money for the local economy but do pollute a lot.
And, of course, they tend to be racist as ****.
 
Darat said:
Doubt it - they'll do what they usually do import the needed experts and hire locals via the local "leaders". What you must bear in mind is that unlike the "western" countries China has no interest in the internal workings of a country (if it doesn't get in their way).
Click to expand...

And if it does, the "invasion" will end the same way the others before it did.
 
jollyroger85 said:
And if it does, the "invasion" will end the same way the others before it did.
Click to expand...

I dunno. China seems to be a lot more comfortable with pogroms, genocide, and ethnic cleansing than a lot of the previous contenders. I think the real question is whether Pakistan is willing to leave that corridor open for Chinese shenanigans, and how far China is willing to go to force Pakistan to leave it open.
 
The New Silk Road only works if it is faster, cheaper and safer than container ships.
No amount of crackdown could make it safe enough if the Afghani want to disrupt it.
 
jollyroger85 said:
And if it does, the "invasion" will end the same way the others before it did.
Click to expand...

This has already happened, most notably at the world largest copper reserves at Mes Aynak. China wanted it but there were too many problems, including a self-own that signing the large contract made copper prices weak.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mes_Aynak_mine

https://chinadialogue.net/en/busine...fghanistan-s-giant-copper-deposit-languishes/

(2018) The Afghan government’s hopes of economic development were high in 2008 when it signed contracts with a consortium consisting of Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC) and Jiangxi Copper Corporation.
However, no exploitation has begun at Mes Aynak – and no one knows when it will, which also casts doubts on the prospects of exploiting Afghanistan’s numerous other mineral deposits.

Looking for an explanation, chinadialogue has obtained exclusive access to a recent report of the Logar provincial government, amongst others, listing the problems that have held back the mine’s launch. It states that the Chinese consortium has requested to renegotiate the contracts, and that the excavation of an archaeological site in the mining area is taking longer than expected. The report also indicates a lack of phosphate sources – a mineral needed for the further processing of copper ore – that the Afghan government promised to make available to the consortium, and concerns over security.
Click to expand...

May 2020 Afghanistan attacks
On 17 May, the Taliban attacked a security checkpoint near the Mes Aynak mine, the country's largest copper mine, in Mohammad Agha District, Logar Province, southeast of Kabul. Eight security guards were killed and five others wounded
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They also had occasional soviet era rockets landing there.
You could argue that since attacks in the area were Taliban that some security risk will be removed. But if the previous government couldnt get their act together after so many years with billions in international support, the Taliban will be 100x worse.
Too risky for China. They might try to placehold their stakes but no one is going to invest big money there for a loooong time to come.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
The New Silk Road only works if it is faster, cheaper and safer than container ships.
No amount of crackdown could make it safe enough if the Afghani want to disrupt it.
Click to expand...

Maybe it's a question of priming the pump. If there's money to be made, there's money to be invested in the opportunity. I wonder how much money you'd have to throw at the Taliban, for them to sign on as your de facto security force and throughput guarantor in the region.
 
We might as well let China have Afghanistan because if it's like Iraq, we don't know diddly squat about it. Even with the CIA, NSA, FBI, UN, and all of the other acronyms, when Bush went into Iraq he know nothing about the ancient tribalism that Saddam was sitting on and tamping down, and it was a complete surprise to the U.S. when those tribes started fighting immediately after Saddam was pulled out the hole in the ground and ISIS was born. We are quite simply too stupid to be nation building.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
The New Silk Road only works if it is faster, cheaper and safer than container ships.
No amount of crackdown could make it safe enough if the Afghani want to disrupt it.
Click to expand...

Which would be very easy to do.
Afghanistan has just about the best terrain for Guerilla Warfare on earth. As The British, THe Russins, and The Americans have found out. The CHinese , if they invervene,will learn the same lesson.
In fact. one fo the problem the Taliban faces is that they are almsot 100% Pashtun, and Many Afghans regard the Pashtuns as just being Puppets of the Pakistanis.
 
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theprestige said:
....I think the real question is whether Pakistan is willing to leave that corridor open for Chinese shenanigans, and how far China is willing to go to force Pakistan to leave it open.
Click to expand...

China and Pakistan seem to get along pretty well, based at least partly on their shared antipathy towards India. They've already got defense contracts, with Pakistan's most common fighter jet being produced via a shared development with China.

If anything, the U.S./European withdrawal from Afghanistan could lead to closer relations between Pakistan and China. The U.S. won't need Pakistan to allow transit of supplies to Afghanistan anymore (Pakistan loses leverage with the U.S.) and China won't pressure Pakistan on human rights and democracy the way the U.S. does. Chinese military hardware is still at least the technological equal to India (Pakistan's arch nemesis) and is much cheaper than the American or European hardware.
 
dudalb said:
Which would be very easy to do.
Afghanistan has just about the best terrain for Guerilla Warfare on earth. As The British, THe Russins, and The Americans have found out. The CHinese , if they invervene,will learn the same lesson.
In fact. one fo the problem the Taliban faces is that they are almsot 100% Pashtun, and Many Afghans regard the Pashtuns as just being Puppets of the Pakistanis.
Click to expand...
The Chinese aren't interested in Afghanistan, only certain resources (copper, gold, REY, lithium) located there. The rest of the country is irrelevant.
 
I hope they start mining lapis lazuli, because its still very expensive to buy it as artists oil paint.
 
catsmate said:
The Chinese aren't interested in Afghanistan, only certain resources (copper, gold, REY, lithium) located there. The rest of the country is irrelevant.
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Yes, but you sort of have to control the countryside to be able to exploit the mineral resources. And any open CHinese presence would make them a target.
 
catsmate said:
The Chinese aren't interested in Afghanistan, only certain resources (copper, gold, REY, lithium) located there. The rest of the country is irrelevant.
Click to expand...

China is actually fairly concerned about Islamic and military influence on the Uighur population in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in far West China, which shares a border with Afghanistan, Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and India.
 
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