Achieving world peace is that easy. Just remove USA.
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Global South strategic cooperation
- Thread starter Strangelove
- Start date
solarz
Brigadier
That is literally not easy.
Good article here about China's relationship with Kazakhstan. A very important country to China in so many ways.
- import of oil & gas
- major player in BRI with transportation to Europe and rest of Asia.
- decent size market for auto export
- often under looked but uranium cooperation
Uzebekistan, Russia & China produced another 17% of world's uranium in 2021.
Only major Western Uranium producers are Australia & Canada produced 18% of world's uranium in 2021.
Westerners often concern themselves with Russian control of oil & natural gas or China's control of rare earth, but they are completely ignoring central Asian dominance in nuclear fuel.
- import of oil & gas
- major player in BRI with transportation to Europe and rest of Asia.
- decent size market for auto export
- often under looked but uranium cooperation
Kazakhstan produced 45% of world's Uranium in 2021.
Uzebekistan, Russia & China produced another 17% of world's uranium in 2021.
Only major Western Uranium producers are Australia & Canada produced 18% of world's uranium in 2021.
Westerners often concern themselves with Russian control of oil & natural gas or China's control of rare earth, but they are completely ignoring central Asian dominance in nuclear fuel.
China strengthening agricultural production in the region is very important to keep India (and Russia and Ukraine) out. Iran is a major importer of Indian rice, so boosting rice production there should be very beneficial.
But it's not just Iran, the whole region is dangerously dependent on foreign countries for food imports. Only if they're independent and their supplies can't be cut off can these countries freely decide who to ally with. Looking at production figures of various West and Central Asian countries, the former Soviet central Asia really sticks out. Especially Kazakhstan has relatively low yields per acre but fairly high production.
In 1992 Kazakh cereal production was apparently much higher than today and because yields are so low there should be huge potential.
Am I missing something or should China help turn Kazakhstan into the new breadbasket for the region, at least for wheat? Kazakhstan could potentially even supply China
Iran may become a reliable partner to China, but they also exposed liability that China have to avoid. At least for now. It is because Iran is so consumed with their religious ideology, and quite a antagonist to Middle Countries with Sunni religion ideology. If China take side with Iran, it will close the door to have a good relation with Saudi, etc.
I think, even if Saudi has a good relation with US, but MBS has a bit tarnished relationship with US right now, because of Kasogi (I forget how to spell the name) murder case. Plus, I'm sure that China doesn't has any intention to form a military alliance with Saudi. Looking at the trend, I'm sure that they aim to weaken the influence US Dollar as an international trade currency. So I think that their target is to kill the US capability to print the unlimited dollar in near future.
The next step will only begin with China has acchieved their initial objective; de-dollarization. Others can wait. Taiwan can wait. But there is better chance than today to erase the unlimited dollar printing by US.
I can't really say about other aspects, but Uranium, BRI & other energy cooperation & usage of RMB in trading them is what China wants from Kazakhstan. Importing more agriculture product from there makes sense as a whole of reducing dependency on farming imports from Western countries, but that's tertiary concerns.
Entire Central Asia is very important to China given its role in providing natural resources and all the infrastructure project China is building there as part of BRI
Wang Yi recently made a stop to Uzbekistan on his trip to Europe. They also signed deal with Solar Power plant there. It's quite an interesting thing to see. 2 GW of solar power is a lot for a country of that size.
As for Saudi Arabia, I will say this to those people doubting that relationship.
- Saudi Arabia is eager to join SCO & BRICS
- Saudi Arabia volunteered to tell everyone about willingness to use RMB for trading oil and got rest of GCC countries to join along
- Saudi Arabia is relying on China in its proxy war with Iran with all the drones and counter drone systems
- Saudi Arabia continues to buy more weapons from China
- Saudi Arabia is relying on China for DF-21 ballistic missile and possible nuclear weapons in the future to deter Iran (who else could help them here?)
- Saudi Arabia relies on Huawei to build its entire ICT infrastructure, same with UAE
- Saudi Arabia relying on China to build their renewable + nuclear power + green hydrogen infrastructure to shift economy away from oil
- NEOM project will heavily involve Chinese firms
- Both Saudi Arabia & UAE are looking to work deeply with China in space tech.
The Saudis and entire GCC and Arab countries will be deeply reliant on China for their economic & security future. Things don't happen over night, but they are moving pretty fast.
- Saudi Arabia is eager to join SCO & BRICS
- Saudi Arabia volunteered to tell everyone about willingness to use RMB for trading oil and got rest of GCC countries to join along
- Saudi Arabia is relying on China in its proxy war with Iran with all the drones and counter drone systems
- Saudi Arabia continues to buy more weapons from China
- Saudi Arabia is relying on China for DF-21 ballistic missile and possible nuclear weapons in the future to deter Iran (who else could help them here?)
- Saudi Arabia relies on Huawei to build its entire ICT infrastructure, same with UAE
- Saudi Arabia relying on China to build their renewable + nuclear power + green hydrogen infrastructure to shift economy away from oil
- NEOM project will heavily involve Chinese firms
- Both Saudi Arabia & UAE are looking to work deeply with China in space tech.
The Saudis and entire GCC and Arab countries will be deeply reliant on China for their economic & security future. Things don't happen over night, but they are moving pretty fast.
To-be-honest, many layman in the public usually don't understand the importance of Central Asia, mainly because they are mostly known in history textbook as former Soviet states that got their independence after the disintegration of the USSR.
Other than energy (uranium ore and oil & gas) and food (grain), there is one other yet important thing that I believe is crucial for China - defense.
For one thing, as long as Central Asia is securely under the influence of China and a pro-China Russia, China has little to worry about her western frontier. However, since the attempted colour revolution in Kazakhstan early last year plus the worsening Russian influence in Central Asia due to the war in Ukraine and Moscow's recent beef with Astana, China must be prepared to step in and fill the void left by Russia in Central Asia in order to secure and defend her western rear from any attempts of coercion and subjugation by the US-led NATO.
Apart from preventing NATO from having any significant military and political presence in Central Asia (military bases, observation (read: spying) stations, training grounds for Muslim extremists WRT Xinjiang and the BRI, etc), Central Asia is also very useful as per below:
US strategic bombers based in Western Europe can reach western China to conduct strategic bombing against Chinese military and civilian infrastructures and industries from that direction.
For the defense of China further out to the west:
1. Turkey is a NATO member and is harboring Xinjiang extremists and seperatists, hence they are unreliable;
2. Azerbaijan is allied to Turkey and has close relations with NATO, so they aren't really dependable either;
3. Georgia is pretty much a de-facto NATO member since 2008; and
4. Armenia, despite being a Russian ally, can be easily bypassed.
Going up north to Russia is certainly a no-go, and the same goes for Iran down south. Hence, the only way that US bombers could ever reach China's western frontier would be through Central Asia.Therefore, Central Asia should play its role as a geopolitical and military barrier in order to prevent NATO from conducting long-range attacks into China's interior from the west.
This would very much require China to significantly beef up her involvement and influencing efforts in the region in the coming years.
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H20s could use that route in reverse.