The real money is in copper. At least China seems to think so. As reported in The New York Times and elsewhere, Chinese workers are getting set to begin extracting some of the estimated $88 billion in copper deposits from Afghanistan on the site where al Qaeda operatives trained for the 9/11 attacks, the event which triggered the United States’ longterm presence in the region to begin with. The excavations are being prepared by the state-owned China Metallurgical Group Corporation (the official site) in the Aynak valley district just south of Kabul.
As it turns out, Afghanistan isn’t the only region in which China is bolstering its own economy, while in turn, apparently creating jobs and opportunity for destitute regions of the Middle East. It’s investing in Iraqi, gas from Iran and its also putting money into Pakistan and parts of Africa, according to the article. In the Aynak valley,
M.C.C. will dig a new coal mine to feed the plant’s generators. It will build a smelter to refine copper ore, and a railroad to carry coal to the power plant and copper back to China. If the terms of its contract are to be believed, M.C.C. will also build schools, roads, even mosques for the Afghans. — The New York Times, Dec. 29, 2009
Further, though the Chinese are obviously a world leader economically, they also apparently turn the idiom of a bull in a china shop on its head, and wear a plain, common man demeanor and dress when dealing with the local Afghans, which flies in stark contrast to the Yahoo-nature of many an American on foreign soil.
“The Chinese are much wiser,” said Nurzaman Stanikzai, a former mujahedeen and currently a contractor for the MCC. “When we went to talk to the local people, they wore civilian clothing, and they were very friendly. The Americans — not as good. When they come there, they have their uniforms, their rifles and such, and they are not as friendly.”
With the U.S. rightly focusing much of its attention on ousting the Taliban in the hills of Afghanistan and along the Pakistani border and, with Afghanistan’s rich trove of resources,
All the ingredients are there to build a modern society.
said Stephen Peters, with the U.S. Geological Survey, in an report from The Times of London. The Chinese, indeed, may be onto something in helping developing countries take new steps toward modernism. As Ibrahim Adel, China’s Minister of Mines, tersely said in the London Times article:
This is one way to control extremism.
See this story for another discussion of this topic.
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Note: For literary types, here’s a side project. Go back and study Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, comparing the Yahoos (possibly a predated picture of how some would come to view Americans in the modern world) with the Houyhnhnms (how many view Asian cultures, with their attention to detail, logic, cool-headed approach to life). I’m by no means implying that the analogies are rock solid — Swift was writing three centuries ago, after all — but it’s interesting to think about.
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And yes, I’m aware that it’s been more than a week since I wrote anything. Hampered by a bout of bronchitis, I was down for the 10-count for a few days, mostly staring at the walls, pushing the dog away and eating chicken noodle soup. Then came the holidays and a much-needed respite from work and a return to frag-laden play in Counter Strike: Source. But I’m back and gnawing on multiple ideas for future topics.
I write things. And sometimes they make sense. If you got this far, I’ll send you a candy cane via parcel post. – js.