While the United States spends hundred of billions of dollars fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, China is securing raw material for its voracious economy. The world's superpower (US) is focused on security. Its fastest rising competitor (China) concentrates on commerce, observes Michael Wines. (1) One person has said, “We do the heavy lifting, they pick the fruit.”
China has spent about $5 billion in the past five years buying more than a dozen copper mines and deposits from Afghanistan to Zambia. (2) They have a reason to be investing in these new pipelines of copper. In 2010, the world used seventeen million tons of copper. By 2015, worldwide demand for copper is expected to reach twenty-five million tons. China consumes almost 30 percent of the world's copper supply every year, a number that will increase to almost 40 percent by 2025. Although China is one of the top five producers of copper, its domestic supply cannot keep up with its ravenous demand reports Bill Carter. (3)
The Afghanistan copper mine (Aynak) cost the Chinese almost $3 billion. It's believed to be one of the world's largest copper mines with proven reserves of 690 million tons of copper ore containing about 1.65 percent or 11.3 million tons of copper. The Aynak reserves consist of about one-third of China's total proven copper reserves. Afghan Minister of Mines, Ibrahim Adel, said that this deal was the biggest investment in Afghan history, with about 10,000 people expected to work there. (4)
In an Afghanistan Taliban stronghold in the mountains south of Kabul, US troops have set up bases along a dirt track that a Chinese firm paved as part of the $3 billion project to gain access to the Aynak reserves. American forces also have expanded their presence in neighboring Logar province where the Aynak deposit is located. Jonathan Landy reports, “The US deployment wasn't intended to protect the Chinese investment—the largest in Afghanistan's history—but to strangle Taliban infiltration into the capital of Kabul. But if the mission provides the security that a project to revive Afghanistan's economy needs, the synergy will be welcome.” (5)
Ironic isn't it? The US government has spent almost $1 trillion on the conflict in Afghanistan since 2001 and a treasure trove of mineral deposits, including vast quantities of industrial metals such as copper, lithium, gold, cobalt, and iron are likely to wind up going to China and Russia instead of American firms. Another irony is that it is US government geologists and Western companies who are locating the vast mineral deposits that the Chinese and Russians are exploiting in Afghanistan. (6)
Another issue is that the Aynak mining area is also home to vast acheological ruins, including 15th century Buddhist monasteries and even older Bronze Age settlements. Preservationists—working furiously to excavate the nearby ruins before they are buried under mining ruble—have urged restraint in developing the copper deposits. But those focused on Afghanistan's economic development have urged the country to move full speed ahead, citing the dire need for the $1 trillion in revenue that the mine could bring to the impoverished country. (7)
The Chinese are developers of resources but not explorers of resources. They will look at projects where they already have a reserve in place and then go out and buy it. They don't spend the risk capital and the exploration dollars, said James R. Yeager, an Arizona consultant, who has worked as an adviser to the Afghan Ministry of Mines. (6) So let folks like the US and UN fight wars and discover the resources, then step in and reap the resource benefits. Here's what Michael Wines says about this, “One conclusion is inescapable: American troops have helped make Afghanistan safe for Chinese investment. And there is no sense that either government objects to that reality. As diplomats and soldiers alike stress, the war in Afghanistan was never motivated by commercial prospects. Had an American company won Aynak, some Afghans noted wryly, critics inevitably would have accused the Untied States of waging war to seize the country's mineral wealth. Moreover, if China succeeds in developing Aynak and generating revenue for the Kabul government, that helps achieve an American goal. (1)
An inescapable conclusion is that somehow all the deaths we've incurred and money we've put into the country now apparently will provide a big boost for a crucial material for the Chinese. Somehow this just doesn't feel right.
The Chinese have rebuffed requests to join the Afghan war effort, saying that national policy forbids military action abroad except as part of of peacekeeping force. Instead, China's foreign policy is based on commerce. Its state-owned companies have been snapping up energy and mineral resources worldwide for years now, often by overwhelming competitors with lavish offers. (1)
China also owns mines in Pakistan, Indonesia, and several South American countries, and Africa has emerged as another priority in China's goal to grab as many sources of raw materials as it can over the next thirty years. For the past decade, as the United States and most of its Western allies sat on the sidelines, China answered the plea of African nations to invest in their continent. Much of the hesitation revolves around who is in charge of these nations. Corruption is rampant, with a small elite profiting while the average worker toils in poverty. Unlike most Western loans, which come with strings attached—liberalization, privatization, and democratization--China has a long-standing noninterference policy. This allows China to dance with the devil and profit from him at the same time, says Bill Carter. (3)
Late in 2010 China purchased Peru's Mount Toromocho which has tons of copper for $810 million. A Chinese state -owned mining company will tear down the peak in Peru and ship home the copper. It plans to relocate the town of Morococha, population 5, 397. Many don't want to leave. The project is part of $11 billion in Chinese mining investments planned for Peru, a quarter of the country's total. (2)
References
Michael Wines, “China willing to spend big on Afghan commerce,” The New York Times, December 29, 2009
“China boss in Peru on $50 billion peak bought for $810 million,” Bloomberg News, November 1, 2010
Bill Carter, Boom, Bust, Boom, (New York, Scribner, 2012), 234
“Patagonia Under Siege,” patagonia-under-siege.blogspot.com, December 2007
Jonathan S. Landay, “China's thirst for copper could hold key to Afghanistan's future,” McClatchy Newspapers, March 8, 2009
Charles Wallace, “China, not US, likely to benefit from Afghanistan's mineral riches,” daily finance.com, June 14, 2010
Lois Parshley, “Golden Buddha, hidden copper,” foreignpolicy.com, September 21, 2012
Jack Dini is author of Challenging Environmental Mythology. He has also written for American Council on Science and Health, Environment & Climate News, and Hawaii Reporter.
