While the US Fights In Afghanistan, China Profits and Builds A Copper Mine In Afghanistan

[Better Believe It]

"America is sacrificing its blood and treasure, the Chinese will reap the benefits."


CHINA HEADS TO AFGHANISTAN
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
October 14, 2009

LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan – Early on a recent morning we were driving to a shoot when an astonishing sight loomed up ahead of us. NBC News cameraman Steve O’Neill exclaimed, "It’s the Great Wall of China!"

The Chinese workers – several hundred technicians – are part of a multibillion-dollar Chinese investment in Afghanistan’s largest-ever infrastructure project, the Aynak copper mine.

After wooing Afghan officials from as early as 2001, a Chinese mainland joint venture finally won the rights in 2007 to develop the site over 30 years. So far, it has sunk more than $4 billion into the project.

The joint venture – between majority partner China Metallurgical Group Corp. and Jiangxi Copper Corp. – expects production to begin by the end of 2011 with an initial annual output of 180,000 tons of copper that will eventually grow to 320,000 tons. China will have rights to half that output, which it needs to fuel its own massive economic growth.

But the mine is just outside Kabul, in Logar Province, where there has been heightened insurgent activity. Some 1,500 Afghan police are stationed on site with a new police barracks in the works. And although they say they are not attached to the project, the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division occasionally sends units to patrol the area. China – of course, not being a member of NATO – has no troops on the ground in Afghanistan.

"This project will benefit Afghanistan and bring jobs," said Nurzaman Stanikzai, a 44-year-old native of Logar Province. His company has been helping build some of the roads at the copper mine as well as the dormitories for Chinese workers. "The American troops should start projects like this copper mine."

In addition to setting up the copper production infrastructure, which includes a smelter, power generation station, coal mine and groundwater system, the Chinese joint venture is also building roads, Afghanistan’s first national railway, new homes for villagers who will be resettled from the immediate area of the mine, hospitals and schools.

Government officials expect the copper mine to earn hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and royalties as well as provide jobs – direct and indirect – for nearly 40,000 people.


"It's the Great Wall of China," said NBC cameraman Steve O'Neill when we saw the Hesco sandbags surrounding the Chinese workers camp at the Aynak copper mine in Afghanistan.


The dormitories housing Chinese workers at the Aynak Copper Mine came from China.

Please read the complete article at:

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/10/14/2098654.aspx


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Op-Ed Contributor
Beijing’s Afghan Gamble
By ROBERT D. KAPLAN
October 6, 2009

IN Afghanistan’s Logar Province, just south of Kabul, the geopolitical future of Asia is becoming apparent: American troops are providing security for a Chinese state-owned company to exploit the Aynak copper reserves, which are worth tens of billions of dollars. While some of America’s NATO allies want to do as little as possible in the effort to stabilize Afghanistan, China has its eyes on some of world’s last untapped deposits of copper, iron, gold, uranium and precious gems, and is willing to take big risks in one of the most violent countries to secure them.

In Afghanistan, American and Chinese interests converge. By exploiting Afghanistan’s metal and mineral reserves, China can provide thousands of Afghans with jobs, thus generating tax revenues to help stabilize a tottering Kabul government. Just as America has a vision of a modestly stable Afghanistan that will no longer be a haven for extremists, China has a vision of Afghanistan as a secure conduit for roads and energy pipelines that will bring natural resources from the Indian Ocean and elsewhere. So if America defeats Al Qaeda and the irreconcilable elements of the Taliban, China’s geopolitical position will be enhanced.

The problem is that while America is sacrificing its blood and treasure, the Chinese will reap the benefits. The whole direction of America’s military and diplomatic effort is toward an exit strategy, whereas the Chinese hope to stay and profit.

Bottom line: China will find a way to benefit no matter what the United States does in Afghanistan. But it probably benefits more if we stay and add troops to the fight. The same goes for Russia.

In nuts-and-bolts terms, if we stay in Afghanistan and eventually succeed, other countries will benefit more than we will. China, India and Russia are all Asian powers, geographically proximate to Afghanistan and better able, therefore, to garner practical advantages from any stability our armed forces would make possible.

Everyone keeps saying that America is not an empire, but our military finds itself in the sort of situation that was mighty familiar to empires like that of ancient Rome and 19th-century Britain: struggling in a far-off corner of the world to exact revenge, to put down the fires of rebellion, and to restore civilized order. Meanwhile, other rising and resurgent powers wait patiently in the wings, free-riding on the public good we offer. This is exactly how an empire declines, by allowing others to take advantage of its own exertions.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/opinion/07kaplan.html?_r=3&scp=1&sq=Robert%20Kaplan&st=cse

[Canuckistanian]

1. Great. America provides the security, while China hauls out the profits

I don't know why I'm surprised.

[Lilith Velkor]

4. China loaned us the money for the wars

This is how they get it back.

[Arctic Dave]

2. How much money and lives will we flush down the toilet for Afghanistan.

[TwilightGardener]

3. This makes me sick. Maybe China is standing back and smiling

at our military and economic losses from Afghanistan (and our debt from them), the way we loved it when Russia ultimately came to ruin in Afghanistan. Gack.

[amborin]

8. of course!

[NavyMom]

5. They knew dubya dumb azz was all about Halliburton

so from the very BEGINNING they were setting this up while the previous buttholes were supposedly in charge. I know this would not have happened under Obama nor Biden's watch....I say leave their azzes there to rot since this is one of the violent parts of the country and get our troops out then get the troops in Pakistan the help they need. Let them bring in their own troops to secure their workers and spill the blood of their citizens no longer americans.

[ej510]

6. Obama can leave the middle east when he wants to.

[RepublicanElephant]

7. the chinese are all over africa...

they have no problem dealing with corrupt autocrats who can sell them vast amounts of natural resources cheap.

they almost make our corporations look angelic.

[amborin]

9. exactly, plundering as they go

[Better Believe It]

10. They are following the U.S. example of "free enterprise" gone nuts!