When you consider Central Asian countries, can you still say that there is still the influence of Russian bureaucracy in their administration? or can we mention about the influences of China, Iran, US or other countries? It is obvious that they have a lot of natural resources but their citizens are still poor. Is it because of their leaders or external powers like in Arab countries?
Those Central Asian countries are poor simply because they are landlocked. Regardless of their rich natural resources, landlocked countries are doomed to be poor for the following reasons: 1. As they are cut off from the sea, they have difficulties in exporting their natural resources and importing other goods by sea. In other words, they have problems in trading with other countries on a massive scale. 2. Their people have no access to free sources of food from the sea. We must also take note that even though a country has a long coastline, it cannot become a great trading nation if its ports are closed by ice during winter. Other factors affecting the wealth of a nation include the culture, the "quality" and education standard of the labour force, the size of the population, etc.
Thanks, very nice approach. Honestly, I did not consider the landlocked situation. I think the only way to eliminate this disadvantage is to have good relations with neighbour countries which I believe it is really hard. May be they can use Bangladesh, and ''Pakistan and India'' (in the long term). I don't know if Turkey can play more role in here. I think their neighbours also do not want them to be developed. If their economy becomes good, then they would have better education. As far as I followed from the Internet and heard from other people, they have high numbers of illegal groups. They should fight against them.
Just imagine your inconvenience if your home is surrounded on all sides by houses, and every time you leave your home you have to go through one of the bedrooms of your neighbours! Of course, you have to get permission from your neighbours to go through their houses. In the case of country-to-country relationship, even if a landlocked country has friendly neighbours, it is still very difficult to trade with all the countries in the world because it is expensive and uneconomical to tranport goods across the land through rail or by road. Oil can be exported by building a network of oil pipe lines from the oil fields to the ports of friendly neigbouring countries, but televisions, machines, foods, animals and other goods cannot be transported through pipe lines! You can choose to live like a hermit and never leave your home in your life if you have a large enough compound to grow your own food and rear chickens and other animals. As shown in the following links, Central Asia is cut off from Pakistan, India, Blangladesh and Turkey by other countries. Although Turkmenistan shares a border with Iran, it is far away from the Iranian port cities in the Persian Gulf. http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/me.htm http://www.map-of-turkey.com/ http://www.centralasiatravel.com/central_asia_map.html The landlocked situation is a handicap even if the neighbouring countries are kind and generous enough to help in developing the regions. Taking China as an example, however hard the Chinese government tries to develop its inland regions, the living standard in those areas can never match that of the coastal regions. Central Asia is a vast expanse of steppes and deserts with open borders where waves after waves of settlers and conquerors like the Huns and the Mongols of Ghenghis Khan had swept across the regions since ancient times. Even till today, it is quite difficult to prevent large number of illegal immigrants from moving into the regions.
I agree with you but those factors are not permanent. Once a while in history, there may emerge some honest, uncorrupted rulers and politicians. However, they will still be handicapped by the geographical features of the regions. Dear Catch, I catch your meaning of "Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream". I found the following joke in http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264464/quotes "Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse, wouldn't quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out. Gentlemen, as of this moment, I am that second mouse." To me, however, a bucket resembles a landlocked country surrounded by high walls, and it will be lucky for the two little fat mice if they can ever escape from the bucket after finishing all the cream. Failing to do so, they may find themselves buried alive in a bucket of salt by the angry farmer. A question: "How can your business prosper if your shop is surrounded by other shops even though you are an honest businessman?"
But those will never reach the power levels they need to turn things around. Especially when these nations still greatly rely on trade or relations with Russia. Yup! That's a very, very strange way of looking at that, but I somewhat agree..? Land-locked nations aren't that bad off, though. It's just another factor hurting their economic status. What these nations need to do is develop independently and open up to foreign relations with China or the EU; something like what Mongolia is trying. Reedak, I have known you for a while, actually; and have long been a fan of yours. That continues to this day, as I see you are still around and telling it like it is. Rock on.
Thanks for being my fan. Never in my life did I dream of being a star or having any (human) fan. However, I did dream of another type of fan recently. In my dream, I discovered to my horror a fan came crashing down at me from a high building. Fortunately, the fan missed my head and broke into pieces just beside my feet. If the fan hit my head, I might die of heart attack and would never wake up again. Perhaps that fan in my dream was thrown down by another unexpected fan of mine!
Asia faces uncertainty and change... Viewpoint: A year of transition, uncertainty and change 2 January 2012 - China's continued economic expansion is key to the region's overall growth
Yes, but there is plenty of food at the confluence and hence more fish than elsewhere in the two rivers. Not only that, there are more varieties of fish and other living organisms too.
