Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Global South strategic cooperation

so this one is interesting to watch
Turkey is going through a tough time right now and am not 100% sure if Erdogan can survive through another election. It's definitely a huge plus for China if Erdogan and his party can remain in power. They are currently being shut out of F-35 program despite being a NATO member. Turkey has suddenly spent a lot of time in SCO.

At the current time, the big issue with China/Turkey relationship imo are Xinjiang and China's huge trade surplus. I think both of these issues can become less relevant over time. There is tremendous value for Turkey to be a large transit country in the new Silk Road. All the non-Russia China to Europe route goes through Turkey. Aside from the Kazakhstan->Caspian->Caucasus->Turkey route. There is also the CKU->Turkmenistan->Caucasus->Turkey route or even a future CKU->Turkmenistan->Iran->Turkey route that are possible.

And it might be possible in the future for China to sell more weapons to Turkey as Europe continues to decline and Asia continues to rise.

tphuang said:

so this one is interesting to watch

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Turkey is going through a tough time right now and am not 100% sure if Erdogan can survive through another election. It's definitely a huge plus for China if Erdogan and his party can remain in power.

Click to expand...

Where did you get the idea that China supports Erdogan and his party? If you follow Chinese state media you'll know this is clearly not the case.

China is not stupid enough to support a Pan-Turkism leader, nor does China meddle in other countries' affairs. Just because Erdogan rubbed elbows with Xi at SCO meeting doesn't mean Erdogan is Xi's friend. China wouldn't give a second though if another leader comes to power in Turkey.

coolgod said:

Where did you get the idea that China supports Erdogan and his party? If you follow Chinese state media you'll know this is clearly not the case.

China is not stupid enough to support a Pan-Turkism leader, nor does China meddle in other countries' affairs. Just because Erdogan rubbed elbows with Xi at SCO meeting doesn't mean Erdogan is Xi's friend. China wouldn't give a second though if another leader comes to power in Turkey.

Click to expand...

hmm, where did I say anything about meddling in Turkey's affairs?

While EU is on the decline, it would still be hard to see other Turkish party willing to be neutral in international affairs. I could see Turkey under Erdogan eventually be willing to be neutral.

tphuang said:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

So this kind of stuff keeps coming up in Western media. Generally speaking, I would much prefer that they spread the narrative that BRI is failing rather than BRI is a debt trap for other country. If the narrative becomes China is making stupid loans and wasting money, it's actually probably a better thing China.

At the basic level, I think people generally do not understand what BRI is really about. It is China's way of pushing all world's economic activity through China. All the railway/ports that are built are designed to make it easier for China to be part of every economic transaction. All of which not only provides employment for Chinese construction companies but also make China's industries and supply chain the most powerful in the world.

I actually saw someone reference to the WSJ article and say that CKU doesn't make any sense. It's like people don't understand the importance of Western China have rail access into Afghanistan or making rail freight to Europe cheaper/fast or accessing Indian Ocean or providing additional traffic to the ports of Gwadar/Karachi.

It is true that a lot of projects have not brought back positive return on investment. Some projects have just appear to be a waste of money so far. But you are not going to hit on every project. People are also not factoring in supply chain security or SLOC security from having over the land transportation. People are also not factoring in how this has allowed China to get commodities cheaply and de-industrialize Western countries.

I find it quite funny that people think China is wasting a $1 trillion here, but forget that America now spend close to $1 trillion a year on military spending. The investment that China has put into its industries cannot be easily measured. It would be hard for China to get this much bang on the buck on its military expenditure if its domestic industries weren't so efficient. How does China have such a large commercial fleet if it wasn't managing ports around the world? How would China have such a strong naval shipbuilding program if it did not have the largest shipbuilding industry in the world (with domestic orders playing a large part)? How can China ensure that it's the future of lithium battery production unless it builds infrastructure around getting lithium from lithium producers to China really efficiently? How can China continue to dominate commerce in Southeast Asia and Central Asia unless it builds all the ports and railway needed to easily facilitate transportation and trade?

there are some investments that are taking longer to bear fruition. CPEC is often mentioned. I do think there are cases of investment where more investment are needed to show results. Is it a good thing for there to be greater scrutiny for some of the projects? Sure. Especially when we are in the middle of a global recession and energy crisis. But there is no way China will stop infrastructure around the world even if it is no longer called BRI.

Click to expand...

Profit is not the point of BRI. It's a strategic and national security project so that China can't be completely cut off from the world via solely a naval blockade. It also fills a middle option for trade. Not as cheap and slow as by sea, not as expensive and fast as by air.

tphuang said:

I find it quite funny that people think China is wasting a $1 trillion here, but forget that America now spend close to $1 trillion a year on military spending.

Click to expand...

BRI spent $1 Trillion over 10 years is $100B per year... compared to $1 Trillion PER YEAR of U.S. military defense spending, not including the $2.3 Trillion pissed away in Afghanistan war which they evacuated. Yet, they have the gall to call out China for wasting money... Atleast it was building ports, bridges, roads, not bombing people or bribing warlords or corrupt MIC money. WSJ would never report on that.

tphuang said:

so this one is interesting to watch

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Turkey is going through a tough time right now and am not 100% sure if Erdogan can survive through another election. It's definitely a huge plus for China if Erdogan and his party can remain in power. They are currently being shut out of F-35 program despite being a NATO member. Turkey has suddenly spent a lot of time in SCO.

At the current time, the big issue with China/Turkey relationship imo are Xinjiang and China's huge trade surplus. I think both of these issues can become less relevant over time. There is tremendous value for Turkey to be a large transit country in the new Silk Road. All the non-Russia China to Europe route goes through Turkey. Aside from the Kazakhstan->Caspian->Caucasus->Turkey route. There is also the CKU->Turkmenistan->Caucasus->Turkey route or even a future CKU->Turkmenistan->Iran->Turkey route that are possible.

And it might be possible in the future for China to sell more weapons to Turkey as Europe continues to decline and Asia continues to rise.

Click to expand...

The narrow corridor through Georgia doesn't look very safe. If Georgia doesn't commit to the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, any trade corridor will be vulnerable to a future war there.

It also doesn't look very smart for China to promote Turkey's influence in central Asia where they will promote pan Turkish feelings

I think the time for Georgia to give autonomy to Abkhazia and South Ossetia is long gone.
As is, Abkhazia keeps pushing slowly south reducing the amount of Georgian coast. And South Ossetia is right on top of the gas pipeline in Georgia.

As for Turkey, you only need to see what happened recently in Kazakhstan, or indeed how Turkey continues providing safe harbor for the East Turkestan rebels. Or how the funding for the islamic schools in Xinjiang used to come from Turkey. They cannot be trusted.

Alright, so BRI is not just about securing freight transportation over land. It's an insurance policy, but not the main reason you build all these ports around the world and order the largest commercial fleet. The main goal of BRI is to make delivering goods to China easier, so that China is involved in every (maybe overstating things, but a lot of) commercial transaction out there. So you want to buy a solar panel in Germany huh? Well, you can buy a locally made one or you can buy a Chinese one. The Chinese one will be cheaper because China has this nice infrastructure so that metals, including rare earth metals, can cheaply get carried on rail freight into China, refined in China, sent by rail to some factory in Western China with low electricity bills, assembling a really cheap solar panel, get put on another freight through this silk road all the way into Germany. Guess what, that's still way cheaper than something made in the EU, because you have high labor cost, energy cost and lack of supply chain. The more China adds to this, the more efficient it will be.

Another thing on Pakistan. Gwadar is very strategically located and under the control of a staunch ally. The CPEC projects were taking a long time due to ImKhan not pushing for it. I don't have a problem with that. Pakistan has its own internal politics. They have to do what makes sense for them. But if you look at the various power, rail and Gwadar projects, it will take several more years of investment to get this built. At which point, the main concern is how much of the traffic can actually use it. If you look at the map, the shipping distance from the Gulf and much of Eastern Africa to Gwadar is not very long. Especially Muscat/Dubai to Gwadar. That will really lower the cost and improve security of transportation from the middle east and Africa to China. The problem with Gwadar is that it's so underutilized right now because the power and water infrastructure is not complete. The local community there isn't seeing enough benefit. So in order to get this operational, you need to spend a lot more money.

see the diagram in the link below. Keep in mind that the CPEC railway still has not been funded.

CKU is important check the diagram in this link
if you don't build the overly expensive rail directly from Xinjiang to Pakistan, then you have to leverage what you have that don't go through the Himalayas. That would be CKU->Afghanistan->Pakistan Interior->Gwadar/Karachi. It also allows Gwadar to depend on more than just Chinese commerce. Then, you pull in that central asia to Indian ocean traffic. The goal is that these ports that you build a commercially viable so you don't have to continue throwing money into it.

All of these projects leave India out of the picture and that's kind of the point. You want to build infrastructure into India so that China can keep exporting goods there. You don't want to make it easier for India to be commercially viable.

All this talk about companies moving away from China to places like Vietnam. Well, the companies in Vietnam are still Chinese owned. They use the Chinese rail system, supply chain and such. BRI forces all your production to go through China and utilize that Chinese supply chain even if the assembly plant is elsewhere.

Europe is a declining market that is actively trying to reduce imports from China (even if they're failing at this effort). China should use more of these railways in Asia for Asian markets. The countries of the Middle East are developing and their populations are growing rapidly. There is much more effective leadership than in countries like Pakistan. And one country, Iran, has been trying very hard to improve its relations with China and has finally succeeded in entering the SCO. Even before the BRI, Iran has been trying to promote a railway connection from Pakistan via Iran to Turkey. in 2022, the trains finally started rolling again


There is also a train connection from Kazhakstan to Turkey via Turkmenistan and Iran. China could easily plug into that


Finally, Iraq has agreed to finish the link to Iran's railway network. Whether it will actually happen is unclear, but a modern railway line connecting China to Samarkand, Isfahan, Baghdad and Damascus and finally the Mediterranean sea would really resurrect the ancient silk road.


With the new ceasefire to the war in Yemen, there could even be a connection from Iran to Iraq and then Saudi Arabia. All the countries in the region can agree to cease their hostilities for the promise of trade with China.

I don't think people are understanding what I am saying here. The bri makes china more competitive which making everyone else week. As such, one function of silk road in Europe is to actually deindustrialized Europe. Over the next few years, just imagine what will happen to all the major factories on Europe as energy prices continue to escalate. While this is happening, the businesses can either close down or move to china or America. Having this efficient transportation like to Europe means Europe will likely lose more of their manufacturing to countries along the silk road. It will be faster and cheaper to ship goods from china than America. As such, china will build up a larger industrial trade surplus against Europe as a result of these efficient production linem. For the ones that can get through this, they are likely to increasingly rely on Chinese supply chain. As such, china needs to continue to increase capacity on rail line as well as adding more commercial shipping with Europe.

As for Iran vs Pakistan, that's a situation of trust. Pakistan is a loyal friend that has stood by china for decades. It is also possible that gwadar will be a future plan base. I cannot imagine Iran allowing china to build a base in it's country. On top of that, chinese firms control gwadar, so can optimize it in a way that prioritizes Chinese interest. As such, I think china would be interested in using Iran's rail, but won't be able to get too involved.

Also keep in mind that Afghanistan is a big part of this. It is a country that has a lot of natural resources. The development of cku to Afghanistan to Pakistan allows china to import natural resources along all these countries as well as middle east and Africa. I am not against going through Iran and Iraq to get into Saudi Arabia. However, that would require the sunnis and the Shiites to get along. Easier said than done. Gwadar is very close to the part of gulf countries that have population and produce hydrocarbon. It is a natural solution for china in the region.