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There is no doubt that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently attracted widespread attention and controversy. On the eve of the NATO summit, he held quadrilateral talks with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Finnish President Niinistö and Swedish Prime Minister Andersson, after which he signed a memorandum that suddenly gave Finland and Sweden the "green light" to join NATO.
As for the conditions, of course, in the name of "strengthening cooperation in the fight against terrorism", in fact, in exchange for the support of Finland, Sweden and NATO, they will jointly fight terrorist forces such as the Kurdistan Workers' Party. The Turkish government's intelligence services even announced on July 4 that they had successfully eliminated Berfin Nurhaq, a top PKK member in the Gera region of northern Iraq, a terrorist who had been planning numerous attacks on Turkish security services for years.
Behind the success of this series of events, it is undeniable that Erdogan has contributed to the strategizing behind it. Known as the "Sultan of the New Age", he has been playing an important role on the international stage with dreams of restoring the glory of the Ottoman Empire.
However, as the saying goes, "Only the wrong name, there is no wrong nickname." Since becoming Turkish president in 2014, the Turkish government under Erdogan has repeatedly adopted "hardcore operations." For example, on November 24, 2015, Turkish forces shot down a Russian Su-24 fighter jet, and the next day shot down a Russian Mi-8 helicopter. The incident led to tensions, and it was not until half a year later that Erdogan wrote a letter of apology to Putin and was able to "resolve it peacefully."
For example, Erdogan's government arrested a businessman named Kavala for his involvement in the attempted coup d'état in 2016. However, ten European and American countries, including the United States, Canada, France and Germany, issued a joint statement on October 18 last year, demanding that Turkey "urgently release Kavala." Faced with this, Erdogan fought back, naming the ambassadors of the ten countries "persona non grata" and demanding that the Turkish Foreign Ministry expel them. The United States also had to compromise, and the US Embassy in Turkey issued a special statement saying that the United States is obliged not to interfere in Turkey's internal affairs.
On another occasion, Erdogan repeatedly appealed to the United Nations to cancel the "one-vote veto" of the five permanent members, which angered the five countries: China, the United States, Russia, Britain and France. However, although the P5 did not agree with Erdogan's proposal, they agreed that the UN Security Council needed to be reformed, which in turn earned Erdogan international prestige.
However, Erdogan's "enigmatic operation" is not uncommon for those who understand the current political situation and social situation in Turkey. One of the most prominent issues is Turkey's economy. Last year, the world faced a "wave of interest rate hikes", and the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea and other countries have adopted interest rate hike measures to curb inflation. Turkey, however, took the opposite approach, cutting interest rates by 100 basis points to 15%.
Erdogan praised the move, claiming that Turkey is engaged in an "independent economic war." However, the market did not buy it, and the Turkish lira depreciated nearly 30% against the dollar that month, and by the end of the year it had lost about 47% of its value, a record low.
This shows that despite his outstanding performance in the international political arena, Erdogan is not a great leader when it comes to economics. Especially in the context of the introduction of the "money printing mode" by the United States and the export of inflation to the world, Turkey cannot withstand the impact of the "dollar flood", and Erdogan has not found an effective way to counter the "dollar hegemony".
Turkey's economic problems are not only that. On the one hand, Turkey does not actually have complete "monetary sovereignty", because the basis of its currency issuance is mainly foreign exchange appropriation, and the control of foreign exchange is in the hands of foreign capital and compradors. On the other hand, although Turkey is one of the G20 countries, it can only be regarded as a middle-industrialized country in itself, and its industrial system is not perfect and lacks outstanding industrial advantages.
However, Erdogan's luck seems to have backed him up to some extent. According to reports, a large amount of dilute has been found in the Eskisehir province in northwestern Turkey
Earth resources, which contain about 694 million tons of rare earths, could bring at least billions of dollars in revenue to Turkey. Some professionals even emphasize that these rare earth reserves are enough to meet the global demand for 1,000 years.
However, we need to think more deeply about this finding. First, global rare earth reserves are already sufficient to meet the world's long-term needs, so increasing reserves only increases time, not the breadth of supply. Secondly, rare earth minerals can be divided into two categories: light rare earths and medium and heavy rare earths, the former has many reserves and wide applications, and the latter is expensive and has little substitution, mainly used in high-precision fields, such as aerospace and military industry, which are truly scarce resources. Therefore, the key question is which kind of rare earth minerals are found in Turkey, and what proportion of medium and heavy rare earths are accounted for?
Another key factor is that the global rare earth industry chain has formed a "leader", that is, China, which dominates the global rare earth field. China not only has abundant reserves, but also controls 90% of the global rare earth mining capacity, which means that China has complete supporting facilities in the upstream and downstream industrial chain, and the international market can enjoy high-quality and inexpensive "one-stop service".
In addition, China also has unique advantages in rare earth application technology, and the number of patent applications in related fields is much higher than that of the United States. Therefore, despite the discovery of large-scale rare earth deposits in Turkey, there are still huge challenges in terms of technology, capital and markets.
In summary, Turkey under Erdogan has performed well on the international political stage, but faces major challenges in the economic sphere. The discovery of rare earth resources may present huge economic opportunities for Turkey, but to realize this opportunity, many difficulties need to be overcome, including technical, financial and market challenges. At the same time, China, as a leader in the field of rare earths, still occupies an absolute dominant position. Therefore, win-win cooperation may be the most promising path, and Turkey can work with China to jointly develop this valuable resource and achieve a win-win situation. But this requires wisdom and flexibility on the part of Erdogan's government to respond to the complexity and challenges of the international situation. After all, in the international political and economic arena, only cooperation can achieve true development and prosperity.
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