1/28/2024 0 Comments Afghan loom![]() Beijing refused to renegotiate the contract. The Chinese contractor, MCC, allegedly paid a huge kickback to the then-minister of mines, built a fence at the site, took some potshots from insurgents, packed up, and left. In 2007, China paid almost $3 billion for a 30-year lease at the massive copper deposit of Mes Aynak, promising to build mines, smelters, factories, schools, roads, and a railway protect the remains of an ancient Buddhist city nearby create jobs for Afghans and generate revenue for the Afghan state. If there’s reason to be skeptical of Chinese ambitions toward Afghanistan’s lithium, it’s because we’ve seen this before. But lithium prices have plummeted in recent months, with one reason being the Chinese government’s decision to end subsidies for electric vehicles. Prices skyrocketed between 20 on projected demand for the finite resource. Beijing has just extended Pakistan a new loan of $700 million to help it through its current economic woes it comes on top of the $30 billion Islamabad already owes China.Īs an essential component of rechargeable batteries and electronic devices, lithium is often referred to as “white gold.” While much of the hard-rock lithium comes from Australia and from brines in Chile and Argentina, China dominates lithium refining. The showpiece for Beijing was Pakistan, where successive governments have gotten a few highways and power plants and become increasingly indebted to China as the country hurtles toward bankruptcy. Until the fall of the republic in August 2021, Afghanistan hadn’t been folded into the BRI in any meaningful way. Announced in 2013, it seeks to link Asia with Europe and Africa, overland and overseas. The multibillion-dollar BRI is central to China’s foreign policy. “They’ll extend their Belt and Road through Afghanistan, which will seriously jeopardize any regime in Kabul once it is integrated,” Noorani said. China has already extended the tentacles of its signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) well into neighboring Pakistan, making it the centerpiece of an infrastructure orgy across Central and South Asia. ![]() “The Chinese, at best, will get the contract and sit on it to keep control of the supply and prices of lithium,” said Javed Noorani, an expert on Afghanistan’s mining sector. The legal and regulatory uncertainty almost renders the rest moot. Even if mining could go on without bloodshed, who would sign the contracts? Few recognize the Taliban government, and a chunk of the cabinet is under international sanctions for terrorism. And then there’s the security issue, a problem that has plagued Afghanistan for the last few decades, or centuries, and which spooked the Chinese away from their big copper project. Bolivia, for instance, is a big part of South America’s so-called lithium triangle, but Chile and Argentina’s reserves are infinitely more attractive. ![]() And resources-potential ore-are not the same as reserves, which are things that can be dug up profitably. But resources, in this case of lithium, are sketchily surveyed: The main geological assays were done when the Soviets invaded in the 1980s and when the Americans did the same two decades later. China famously signed a $3 billion deal to develop Afghanistan’s largest copper deposit, not far from Kabul, and then unceremoniously decamped once the shooting started.Īfghanistan is ostensibly an El Dorado, with mineral riches worth at least $1 trillion. But rather than underpinning hope for economic revival, this contract is likely to join other Chinese ventures in Afghanistan that have been signed with great fanfare-for the republic and extremists alike-only to go out with a whimper rather than a bang. On paper, at least, Beijing’s latest deal with the Taliban looks impressive: $10 billion for access to lithium deposits, creating 120,000 direct jobs, plus some infrastructure building and repairs thrown in for good measure. The deal, like so much else China has done with Afghanistan in the last several decades, is more about politics than economics. It could mean that billions of dollars will be pouring into securing a prosperous future for one of the world’s poorest countries. ![]() The latest move is a maybe, could-be deal worth billions to tap Afghanistan’s rich veins of lithium, the key input for the energy transition that powers everything from laptops to electric cars. China, once again, seems to be mucking about in Afghanistan’s mineral-rich playground.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |