Not taking a shot at you personally Raki - there is a lot of this ‘Afghanistan/lithium scare mongering’ on quite a few of the lithium threads…
But imo, it is total nonsense. We have seen ‘Afghanistan - the graveyard of empires,’ slowly churn thru the ambitions of the British, the Russians, the Americans and now people are suggesting it’s China turn? Sure, the Chinese may not show up with guns in their hands but their economic ambitions in Afghanistan (if they truly have any) will surely be thwarted like everyone else’s before them. And, from the Taliban perspective, won’t the Chinese be just a different type of ‘infidel’?
History also shows us that when the US departs a country it has had a conflict with, economic sanctions against that country take a lifetime to unwind. (See Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Venezuela etc?).
That the global chain of EV battery material, of which ESG is of the utmost importance, is suddenly going to be open to Afghanistan’s lithium processed by the Chinese (and that in any meaningful timeframe it could be produced) is such a fantastical idea that it’s proponents can only have ulterior motives…
Not that I wish the Afghani’s any ill will mind you. I just think they have a very very long way to go and things will get worse in that area of the world before they get better… (watch for the destabilizing of Pakistan imo).
One of the things I really like about lithium is actually that it’s abundance means that no country in the future should have a monopoly over it (as we have seen with oil - and ‘oil wars’. ) Any country with the will should be able to find and develop enough of its own to prevent having to rely on another’s. Actually, this leads back to ASN having an ace in its hand, because it is in America. The USA wants to source strategically important minerals from within its own borders. If anything, this point has become more important since the Afghanistan debacle, not less.
