Author: lukewarm source: official account: lukewarm studio has been authorized to reprint
In June 2022, Turkey’s inflation reached a staggering 78.6%, ranking first in the world.
Sri Lanka, which ranks second, has inflation of only 39%, and the people have rushed into the presidential palace. The United States, which has inflation of around 9%, is so nervous that every month, it has to explain to the world the innocence of the imperial reputation. Other countries suffering from inflation, such as Britain and Italy, have inflation of 78 points. The leaders have been unable to bear the pressure and began to resign and step down.
Turkey, the only inflation top stream that has doubled the gap with the second place, has not seen people marching on the streets until now. Erdogan is also calm and calm all the way. He is busy talking and laughing with the interlocutors of Russia and Iran, and even has leisure to make trouble for Finland and Sweden on the issue of joining NATO. He takes out the traditional means of pulling the goose out of the feather. He has to squeeze some interests from Finland and Sweden before nodding his head at the last minute.
It seems that his internal years are quiet and good, and the data of inflation of nearly 80% has never existed in the world.
The people of the world looked at it with a confused face. They couldn’t figure out how Turkey controlled the current situation and let the rampant inflation not cause big waves in the local area.
When things go wrong, there must be demons.
Turkey’s grotesque behavior on the world stage stems from its special political and economic status today. It seems that the strange behavior of demons is inseparable from the soil where special things occur.
We must first briefly understand the background of the formation of contemporary Turkey and the trajectory of Turkey’s economy and inflation after Erdogan takes office.
It’s like that when you are in love, you have to watch a movie hand in hand. You will always warm up for a period of time. If the atmosphere is not clear, you won’t understand the later things.
As we all know, Turkey’s predecessor was the Ottoman Empire, which was originally a Western Turkic tribe under the Roma Sultanate. The Mongolian people rushed from the East and overturned the Roma Sultanate and ran away, killing it or burying it. The Western Turks took the opportunity to take over the former boss’s industry, and fought all the way to establish the Ottoman Empire. In 1453, even the Byzantine Empire was destroyed, and Constantinople was changed to Istanbul, at the Eurasian border, Raised his own prefix.
It’s not 100% sure whether this western Turk is the group that the Tang Dynasty beat up. This account is a little confused. The age has led to insufficient evidence, but it should be right to say that they are part of Western Turks who believe in Islam.
At the beginning of the Ottoman Empire, the first ten leaders were very capable of fighting, known as the “ten masters”, and won a great empire spanning Asia, Africa and Latin America, covering an area of more than 5.5 million square kilometers. They dominated the center of the Eurasian continent, like a Eurasian toll station, eating up the trade between China and Europe, suppressing Europe, which has always been in a state of poverty. Europeans risked their lives to engage in large-scale navigation, because they wanted to bypass the rogue toll station of Ottoman, Do business directly with China and try not to be robbed by him.
China has been in a mess in world history, and its decline is only a matter of nearly 300 years, so we use the word “national rejuvenation” instead of “national rise”. It has risen for 70 or 80 times. Well, we just want to return to the original normal position, which is different from those countries that have crossed the history like a meteor and are too fresh to be top class once. We often stay here. For us, Not much rarity.
The European navigation opened the colonies, and the colonists gave birth to international trade, which gave birth to a modern city like London. In order to solve the problem of coal consumption in London’s population explosion, and to speed up the processing of the colony’s vast amount of raw materials, the steam engine was finally born, triggering the industrial revolution.
The source of all this is just to bypass the Ottoman Empire and do some small business with China.
After 624 years, the Ottoman Empire paralleled the three dynasties of the yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties of China, and had his unique means of survival. Militarily, the Ottoman Empire was significantly stronger than the Qing Dynasty. It was able to wage war with Britain, France and Russia at both ends of the East and west at the same time, and fought back and forth. Unlike the Qing Dynasty, which faced the collapse of all colonists, its war achievements were inferior to that of Africans, and it was a disgrace all the way.
But administratively, the Ottoman Empire was inferior to the Qing Dynasty.
Due to its vast territory and small population, the country only has 15million people. The Ottoman Empire was forced to make various compromises with the local government, and various local autonomy appeared. Even in order to avoid the division of the Empire, the Ottoman Empire had a cruel succession system with the default of the monarch and the people, which was called fratricide customary law, that is, the prince who ascended the throne must kill all his brothers and hang a dozen brothers in a row at any time. In the later period, he felt too bloody. From 1603, Instead, his brother was put under house arrest for life, which directly turned many princes into depression and mental illness, and some people survived to the throne with illness, which directly brought down the dynasty.
Therefore, Turkey’s crazy temperament today is formed by their ancestors. They are not suddenly crazy, but always crazy.
In the declining stage of Osman, Britain and France formed an alliance to fight him from the West. Russia has a greater appetite and wants to go to sea and Istanbul and fight him from the East. However, Britain and France believe that Osman should fight, Russian bears should fight, and Russian bears are the first threat in Europe. As long as Russian bears are big, they will stop bullying Osman, and in turn, the three countries unite to snipe Russian bears in Crimea.
In this way, the Ottoman was finally completely disintegrated in the first World War. The Balkans had long been out of control. The Arabs were taken by the British Lawrence. North Africa also ran away. France took Syria and Lebanon, and Britain took Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq. Soviet Russia demanded that it abandon Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, a 600 year old super empire, It was dismembered to the core area of Turkey today.
The plan of Britain and France at that time was to support a Greek Empire closer to them, form a barrier in Eastern Europe, and continue to fight against the Russian bear and the residual forces of the Ottoman. Greece was ruled by the Ottoman for hundreds of years, and was angry. With the help of Britain, it took advantage of the situation. In 1920, it sent troops from Izmir and pushed westward all the way. Seeing the imminent subjugation of the country and its species, Kemal, a fierce man who performed well in World War I, was forced to cede land to the Soviet Union for resources, At a critical juncture, he led the army to fight against Greece. In September 1922, he captured the commander-in-chief of the Greek army alive, recovered Izmir, preserved the last core territory of the Ottoman Empire, and established his position as the father of the country.
Turkey recovered part of the land, but the Mediterranean islands could not be recovered. The territorial waters of Greece were delimited to the coast of Turkey, which directly pierced Turkey’s throat. Turks could swim to the Greek waters after swimming in the sea. They simply bullied the door of their home, which was the result of the division of territory in those years.
So Greece and Turkey do not deal with each other very well. The two countries have become a century old feud. The international community frictions every day and digs holes for each other.
Kemal looked at Turkey, which had only this little territory left, and learned from the painful experience of promoting modernization, so he held a gun against the head of the opposition, abolished the Sudanese system and the integration of politics and religion, established a republic, carried out modern education, banned the use of the Islamic calendar, banned the use of Arabic alphabets, banned the wearing of tabush hats, non religious personnel were not allowed to wear black veil masks, black robes, beards had to pay heavy taxes, public officials had to wear suits, etc.
Because he was born at gunpoint, he left a legacy to the army. If religious forces return, the army can have a coup and return power to the secular government.
After Turkey, people inherited its legacy. Although the vast majority of its territory is in Asia, they wholeheartedly joined the European Union with the intention of becoming a European country.
In Europe, Turkish teams are allowed to participate in the Champions League, and Turkey is also brought into NATO. However, to join the European Union, first, the old enemy Greece is firmly opposed, and there is no room for negotiation. Second, other European countries are really worried about letting an Islamic country join their organization. After all, different nationalities and religions have accumulated too much hatred for thousands of years, so only Turkey is allowed to play outside, and Turkey is also allowed to engage in sports friendship, But it is absolutely impossible to enter the European Union to make money.
In his early years, Erdogan also adhered to Kemal’s great strategic line of getting close to Europe for development. He also firmly believed that development can only rely on Europe, and only integration into Europe can make Turkey rich and powerful. Therefore, Erdogan in those years dared not only to shoot down Russian planes, but also to do things in Northwest China, completely standing on the west side.
However, the difference between Erdogan and Kemal is that he only wants European money, not the soul of Europe. He is pro European and Islamization at the same time. When he was mayor of Istanbul in 1998, he was imprisoned for four months for reciting the forbidden poems of fundamentalism. After he came to power in 2003, he built 17000 mosques in 15 years, firmly standing on the religious side.
Erdogan is half on the side of Islam because Kemal’s secularization has only been implemented for 15 years, and Turkey’s conservative forces are still very strong. In recent decades, there are signs of a resurgence of Islam among the people, and he needs this solid ticket warehouse.
Erdogan was the Prime Minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014. At that time, the real power of the prime minister was higher than that of the president. In 2007, he amended the constitution through a referendum and changed the parliamentary election of the president to direct election. After 2014, he became the president. As president, Erdogan sought to amend the constitution, intending to expand the real power of the president. It seems that he plans to lead turkey for a lifetime.
In 2016, Erdogan experienced a life and death coup, which took place eight months after he landed the Russian plane. Putin repaid good for bad, and the news of the general’s upcoming coup was told to him in advance.
Erdogan dared to fight a Russian plane because the European Union orally promised to let him join the membership in 2016, so he summoned up his courage. But the European Union is a ruthless scum man. After the Egyptian Sultan hit the plane, they didn’t admit it, which made Erdogan angry for a lifetime. When European Commission President von delaine went to Turkey in April 2021, Erdogan still remembered his old resentment and didn’t even give her a chair.
After receiving the news from Putin this time, Erdogan strengthened his determination to abandon the European Union and Russia, and made it hard to get. He let the army suppress it immediately after the coup, and took advantage of the situation to purge a large number of opposition, including five generals, 2700 judges, 28 mayors, 2000 teachers, and 8000 security personnel.
He also replaced all the important positions in the four systems of the Department of military, political and educational affairs with his own.
Erdogan believed that the coup was carried out by the United States in conjunction with his political opponent Gulen, so he arrested the American priest brenson. Taking this matter as the dividing line, he turned against the United States and fell to Russia.
Erdogan also completely gave up on Europe and knew that Europe would never tolerate him. His national strategy was no longer to the west, but to the Middle East and North Africa, with the intention of becoming the financial center and leader of the Islamic world. Therefore, over the years, Turkey began to continuously participate in the affairs of the Middle East and North Africa, sending troops to Syria and Libya, in an attempt to build itself into a Sunni leader.
Since then, I have never been close to people in the European Union.
Although Erdogan has played a political steering wheel, Turkey’s economic relations with the EU have been broken.
Yes, we are finally approaching inflation.
Any ambitious big country in the world can only strengthen itself through industrialization. Turkey also wanted to do this during the Kemal period, but it is only a semi industrialized country now, and it cannot produce complex industrial products, most of which are primary industrial products, because they are walking and the road is crooked.
Since the beginning of the 1920s, modern Turkey has been engaged in the development of imported alternative industries. Advanced equipment is not developed by itself, and it basically depends on buying. At ordinary times, it makes money by exporting raw materials and primary industrial products, and then uses trade barriers to protect its own industry.
In fact, it is the comprador way commonly used by Latin American countries, which is just the opposite of the independent way that China wants to make everything by itself.
In fact, for a developing country that has just started, Turkey’s choice is relatively easy. People don’t have to suffer so much at the beginning of the country, but the upper limit is not high, and they can’t go up at a certain stage. China’s choice is extremely difficult, but the upper limit is very high. The reason why the quality of life of Chinese people is so low in the first three decades is because they chose the most difficult road to industrialization.
However, Turkey’s cycle has not been completed. Turkey has no oil to earn foreign exchange, is short of money, and cannot buy advanced industrial equipment. At the beginning, it can only engage in infrastructure such as steel industry and construction industry, as well as some simple entry-level industries.
Countries with energy independence and weak basic industries have sustained deficits in the current account and trade of the balance of payments, the economy is a little rusty, and international capital runs away, which makes Turkey one of the most serious countries in history. Since 1971, their inflation has been as high as 19% until Erdogan held down inflation in 2004, which lasted 32 years, The inflation data of Turkey makes people almost want to die. It even reached a staggering 105% in 1994. I don’t know how people in this country survived.
Turkish inflation data over the years, they have been used to such a stimulating life for generations
From 1995 to 2004, inflation devalued the Turkish currency to the level of toilet paper. At that time, the largest denomination of paper currency was 20million lira, and the smallest denomination of coin was 50000 lira.
Erdogan became prime minister in 2003. Before that, when he was mayor of Istanbul in 1999 and 2001, he dealt with the economic crisis in Turkey in a row and did a good job. Therefore, he gained prestige and climbed to the position of prime minister.
In 1999, in the face of 65% inflation, the Turkish central bank offered a benchmark interest rate of 100% and still did not bring down inflation. This matter left a deep impression on Erdogan and affected his strange behavior today.
After Erdogan took office, with the assistance of finance minister Kemal dervi, he did a good job in economic work.
Delvish is a Ph.D. in economics at Princeton University and once served as vice president of the world bank. He has two brushes in his hands. He is actually the main contributor to curbing inflation in Turkey. After all, Erdogan was born as a peddler, good at politics and poor at economy.
Dervish obtained $16billion in assistance from the IMF and replaced the “lira” with “new lira”. The new lira was officially listed and circulated in 2005 at a ratio of 1:1000000, and finally curbed inflation for more than 30 years.
There are three main reasons why Erdogan can rule turkey for a long time. The first is that he finally suppressed inflation during his tenure.
The second reason is that he catered to the people’s resurgence of Islamic culture, reversed history, built mosques wildly, withdrew from the Istanbul Convention on the protection of women, made women also endure domestic violence, changed the Turkish Religious Affairs Bureau from a department that controls and restricts Islam to an institution that promotes Islam, and also abolished the ban on wearing headscarves and restricted drinking, Even the famous cathedral of Saint Sophia was converted into a mosque.
After taking Constantinople, Osman changed the Cathedral of Saint Sophia into a mosque and added four minarets. In 1934, Kemal, who advocated secularization, changed it into a museum and banned its religious functions. When I visited in 2016, I also saw a huge round cover hanging inside the cathedral, covering some orthodox portraits. It was also a museum, and the result was less than four years, In 2020, Erdogan changed the museum into a mosque to cater to Muslims, who account for 90% of the national population.
On the day the decree was issued, 86 years later, the minaret outside the cathedral rang out again, Muslims knelt in darkness outdoors, and Turkey, which was dominated by Islam, came back. Kemal would be angry to vomit blood if he saw it with his own eyes.
The third reason why Erdogan is popular is that he has indeed brought a short-term prosperity to Turkey’s economy.
Erdogan made Turkey’s economy develop rapidly, mainly by borrowing foreign debt, selling state-owned assets and printing money wantonly.
In order to develop Turkey, Erdogan borrowed a lot of money from the outside world. Up to now, the external debt has exceeded US $450billion, accounting for 56% of Turkey’s GDP, and the national foreign exchange reserves are only US $60billion. The sovereign debt crisis has been burning. Among them, the European Union is the enemy that borrows the most.
Source: surging news
In addition to borrowing, another way to make money is the “privatization strategy”. Erdogan has sold state-owned assets wantonly since he took office in 2003, auctioning almost all state-owned assets. Before 2008, he sold hundreds of state-owned enterprises, including energy, transportation, industry and banking. After 2008, he sold all state-owned enterprises in tobacco, animal husbandry, lottery and other industries.
Imagine the privatization of PetroChina, China tobacco, Sinopec, Chinatelecom, industrial and Commercial Bank of China, etc?
Erdogan sold state-owned enterprises crazily. First, he believed that the privatized economy was more dynamic. Second, the European Union offered him conditions to reduce the proportion of state-owned enterprises. “Implementing free markets and reducing economic intervention” are the same as those of Western PUA developing countries.
Printing money is simple. In more than ten years, the M2 of Turkey has increased 24 times.
What did Erdogan do with all the money he got?
I checked the data carefully, mainly including infrastructure, real estate and military industry.
In terms of infrastructure, Erdogan has successively invested 135billion US dollars in the crazy construction of railways, airports, canals, etc., including the 45km Istanbul canal with an investment of 30billion US dollars; The new Istanbul Airport with an investment of 12billion US dollars and a transportation volume of 200million passengers; The world’s first Marmara undersea tunnel spanning Eurasia with a total length of 13.6 kilometers; With a total length of 14.6 kilometers, it is the world’s first double-layer tunnel dedicated to cars; Yilisu dam with a height of 135 meters, etc.
At present, the largest proportion of the top ten super projects under construction in the world is not China, but Turkey, accounting for a total of six.
From 2003 to 2018, Turkey’s foreign-funded enterprises increased 10 times. The economy is too dependent on foreign capital, making insecure citizens invest in real estate. The construction industry accounts for about 20% of Turkey’s GDP, making Turkey’s urbanization rate reach 75%, which has become one of the main driving forces to promote Turkey’s economic development.
In 2021 alone, a total of 1491856 houses were sold in Turkey. In 2021, the average increase in house prices in 56 countries around the world was 9.4%, and the increase in house prices in Turkey was the first in the world, up 35.5%.
In 2021, Chinese people bought a total of 963 houses in Turkey, with little data but great potential. In order to attract Chinese people to take over the offer, Turkey has also made many advertisements to buy a house and give away nationality in recent years.
However, Turkish construction enterprises have grown rapidly in this period of real estate development. Local Chinese told me that their construction enterprises are quite capable of fighting and have a good reputation in Eastern Europe and Russia.
Many sources say that Turkey has been fooling around with hot money in recent years, investing in real estate and basic industries. It has not developed industries, promoted industrial upgrading, or developed high-tech enterprises.
I find this sentence is wrong. Compared with China, it is certainly more than one’s strength, but Turkey can still afford to be a semi industrial country.
In recent years, Turkey’s steel, automobile, textile, cement and electronics have developed rapidly, and can be exported to some poor countries. Military equipment can also be exported to Pakistan, the Philippines and other countries.
By introducing military technology from NATO countries and constantly extorting and purchasing technology from other countries, Turkey can now produce unmanned aerial vehicles, Altai tanks, self-propelled howitzers, multi caliber rockets, amphibious infantry combat vehicles, short-range ballistic missiles, armed helicopters, electromagnetic railguns, etc. 75% of its weapons and ammunition can be made in China.
Azerbaijan won the war with Armenia last year by relying on Turkish drones.
In fact, the UAV technology reflects the current industrial level of Turkey very well. Most of their UAVs are fake Chinese models, which are all imitations. They will be timid when they encounter experts, but it is more than enough to deal with the vegetable chicken countries in the Middle East, which is the level of “learning a few tricks secretly, the level is the same, but it is enough to fight ordinary people”.
However, the military industry is difficult to put into the market to make money, infrastructure and real estate can not be exchanged for foreign exchange, and Turkey has no oil and gas, and no exported industrial products, making the national finance more and more difficult.
You can think about what is produced in Turkey around you? In our daily life, the only Turkish product we can touch is probably rose water.
Erdogan made the Turks live a good life for about a decade by borrowing foreign debt, selling state-owned assets and printing money wantonly. But all the hot money went to infrastructure, real estate and military industry. This eager development route preserved Erdogan’s throne, but distorted Turkey’s future.
When Erdogan took over the country in 2003, the per capita GDP was $4760. In 2013, its per capita GDP reached a staggering $12614. In 10 years, the per capita GDP nearly tripled, once leading China, which can be regarded as one of the contemporary economic miracles of the world.
At that time, the development momentum of Turkey confused the world’s economists, feeling that Turkey had walked out of the development path with Islamic characteristics. How can China’s bitter way of industrial products be faster than that of Egypt and Sudan.
But soon, Egypt and Sudan were beaten by reality. There was no solid industrial system. The prosperity gained by foreign debt and asset sales was always a short-term prosperity. The country soon fell into a three high situation of high inflation, high foreign debt and high trade deficit, which made the currency extremely vulnerable to devaluation and the domestic economy unstable.
In 2004, Erdogan managed to hold down 32 years of terrible inflation. Only 13 years later, in 2017, Turkey returned to a situation where annual inflation was higher than 10%.
In 2021, China’s per capita GDP reached US $12000, surpassing Turkey’s US $9500.
The economic development of large countries still has to go through a painful industrial process. All countries that want to avoid this process have a short-term prosperity. Taking drugs can get good grades for a while, but it is impossible to get good grades for a lifetime.
In the face of the Fed’s interest rate hike, Egypt Sudan is so determined to fight the Fed’s interest rate hike with interest rate cuts, bringing inflation to a staggering 78.6%, ranking first in the world at present.
Economists around the world can only spread their hands: Economics and Erdogan, one of them will die.
The reason why Egypt Sudan has such a strange move stems from his distrust of traditional economics and fighting inflation.
The central bank responded to the economic crisis he personally experienced in 1999 by raising interest rates, but 100% interest rates still failed to prevent capital flight, making him lose confidence in this model.
Since September 2021, Erdogan has made up his mind not to raise interest rates but to cut them. He believes that “raising interest rates will not curb inflation, but only economic growth. Raising interest rates is the murderer of pushing up prices.”
He also said that he “should abandon the traditional monetary policy and fight a war of economic independence.”
Erdogan fired three central bank governors, a deputy governor, and three members of the monetary policy committee in three years, just because these people insisted on raising interest rates to fight inflation.
It was not until the new president kafjorglu took office that this man opposed high interest rates and finally stopped firing people.
Kafjorglu firmly implemented the strategy of not raising interest rates but cutting interest rates, but every time he cut interest rates, the exchange rate of the Turkish Lira against the US dollar fell once.
In 2021, the Turkish Lira depreciated by about 44%, and in the first half of 2022, it depreciated by 22%.
In 2005, Erdogan launched the new lira. 20 lira can be exchanged for 14.8 US dollars. At the end of 2021, 20 lira can only be exchanged for 1.73 US dollars. At the end of June 2022, it can only be exchanged for 1.12 US dollars.
Think about how much impact it will have on our lives if the RMB suddenly depreciates to 70:1 against the US dollar.
The devaluation of the currency caused the rise of energy costs. In June, Turkey’s household and industrial electricity rose by 15% and 25%, and natural gas rose by 30%. Devaluation and inflation formed a vicious circle.
Enagroup, an independent economic research institution in Turkey, believes that the real inflation rate in Turkey is actually close to 160%.
Erdogan knew that cutting interest rates would cause great inflation and devalue the lira. He dared to go his own way because he believed that cutting interest rates would bring economic growth and force European creditors to save himself at the last moment.
He plans to defeat magic with magic.
I specially consulted several Chinese businessmen in Turkey. According to them, life is indeed much more difficult. Last year, watermelon was 2 lira a catty, and this year it is 5 lira a catty. The prices of houses and all daily necessities have doubled, and some items have tripled.
The wages of public officials have increased by 40%, and the minimum wage has also been adjusted for two years with inflation. In 2021, it was increased by 50% to 4250 lira, and in 2022, it was increased to 5550 lira, equivalent to 2100 yuan.
In addition to raising wages, the other is that the government provides subsidies, establishes a fair price market, and launches some materials from time to time. Local Chinese say that this market is established once or twice a week to ensure that civilians can eat.
Because Turkey has at least completed semi industrialization, and its furniture and textile products can be self-sufficient, the basic livelihood of the people has not collapsed for the time being.
The devaluation of the currency also unexpectedly promoted economic development. In June, Turkey’s exports increased by 18.5% to US $23.4 billion, a single month high.
The tourism industry also benefited from this. In 2021, the tourism revenue soared by 182%, and the airport passenger volume increased by 72%, which can bring tens of billions of dollars in revenue a year. For example, the tourist resort bodlem is expected to attract 1.5 million tourists this year, exceeding the level before the outbreak of the epidemic.
Erdogan’s miraculous method of reducing interest rates to fight inflation stunned global economists. This is not feasible in other countries. He relied on the development of industries such as salary increase + parity market + tourism and foreign trade to stabilize the country from a major crisis, but the pressure of inflation is still great. In addition to the necessary items for survival, most things have risen sharply, and Turkish civilians say that life is difficult.
Then why is it that the Turkish people are so mild in the face of the world’s highest inflation, and there is no big parade and riots?
First, the Turkish people have seen the world before. Inflation in the past 32 years is their daily life. There has been no big inflation in the past 10 years, but it is a surprise.
Second, the general election will be held in 2023, and there is no use protesting now. “It’s better to bear it and vote next year.” Although Erdogan has a deep foundation, the support rate of his Zhengfa party has fallen to 32%, which has been surpassed by the opposition “Republican people’s party”. After the devaluation of the lira in 2018, the Zhengfa party has lost the local elections in the two most important cities. With more and more young people born after 2000 having the right to vote, Erdogan is more likely to lose his re-election, unless he reduces inflation to more than a dozen points in these months, Win back the hearts and minds of the people.
However, according to the current situation, the lira will continue to depreciate, while inflation will continue to rise, and the situation seems difficult to reverse.
This nearly 9000 word article, of course, is not only about inflation, but also about the reasons for Turkey’s current difficulties.
Turkey has more temptation and resistance than China on the road to a modern secular industrialized country.
Temptation is their unique geographical location. Europe and Asia take all, enter the European Union and retreat to West Asia. They threaten Europe with refugee problems all the year round. When they are unhappy, they let refugees into the European Union. Europe has no choice but to suppress them and beg for mercy at the same time.
The resistance is that they did not form financial protection like China, nor did they complete the in-depth revolution in China. Kemal did not control the religious forces. After his death, religion quickly returned to the tide. In addition, in the early stage of development, they started by compradors, so that the country is still a semi industrial country, and there is no complete industrialization like China.
Erdogan quickly made the country a little rich for ten years, relying on short-term operation methods such as beating chicken blood, which is not a long-term healthy economic operation mode.
So Turkey went around and returned to the historical path of high inflation.
When I went to Turkey in 2016, I was a guest in a local town. The houses in Turkey are generally red tiles and white walls, neatly arranged, and look not inferior to Spain. But when I look closer, its sense of refinement is obviously weaker than that of eastern and Western European countries. The interior decoration of the room is acceptable, but it is by no means luxurious.
It seems that Turkey’s economy is very excellent from a distance. After careful analysis, it is still not very good.
But Turkey is not too bad. To be fair, its industrialization in the Middle East is the best. It can produce freezers, exhaust fans, pressure relief valves, as well as photovoltaic panels, clothing and shoes. It is the country with the most perfect industrial system in the Middle East.
After World War II, the development route of most countries in the world is exactly the same. After the transfer of financial sovereignty, they began to develop their own industry through the comprador road. After World War II, only China has not ceded financial sovereignty and has completed the whole process of industrialization. In fact, China is an alternative in the world, and most countries simply cannot afford China’s deep development pain.
It is only because of its extremely rare geographical advantages that Turkey dares to make repeated changes between Europe and Russia. Behind its somewhat neurotic governance strategy, it is because it knows that Europe must support it. If it does not support it, it will open the door to refugees to fill Europe, and if it does not save it, it will explode its foreign debt.
To put it bluntly, Turkey is a country whose strength does not match its ambition, and it is precisely a spoiled child who often does some incredible things.
Because of the usual unbridled, there will be coquettish operations to deal with inflation. This strange country makes people feel more and more like such a demon.