In June 2022, Inflation in Turkey reached a staggering 78.6%, ranking first in the world.
Sri Lanka, ranked second, inflation has reached only 39%, the people have rushed into the presidential palace, inflation has reached about 9%, the United States, nervous every month, have to explain to the world the innocence of the imperial reputation, other countries suffering from inflation, such as the United Kingdom, Italy, etc., inflation seven or eight points, the leaders have been unable to bear the pressure, began to resign one after another.
And Turkey, the only inflationary top that has doubled the gap with the second place, has not seen the people marching in the streets until now, and Erdogan has been calm and self-assured, busy talking and laughing with people from Russia and Iran, and even having the leisure to make it difficult for Finland and Sweden on the issue of joining NATO, taking out the traditional means of plucking the hair of the goose, and having to squeeze out some benefits from Finland and Sweden before nodding and letting go at the last moment.
It was as if his internal years were quiet, the international left and right, and the data of nearly 80% inflation did not exist at all.
The people of the world looked confused and confused about how Turkey had calmed down the situation and let the inflation that had occurred violently did not set off a big wave in the local area.
When things go wrong, there must be demons.
Turkey's grotesque behavior on the world stage stems from their special political and economic status today, and their strange behavior that seems to be demonic, all of which are inseparable from the soil that produces special things.
We must first briefly understand the background of the formation of contemporary Turkey, and the trajectory of the Turkish economy after Erdogan took office, and then we can talk about inflation.
Just like when you are in love, you have to hold hands and watch a movie first, you will always warm up for a while, the atmosphere is not enough, and you can't understand the things behind.
We all know that turkey's predecessor was the Ottoman Empire, this empire was originally a Western Turk tribe under the Sultanate of Roma, the Mongols rushed from the east to overthrow the Sultanate of Roma and then ran away, killing and burying, the Western Turks took the opportunity to take over the original boss's property, all the way to the east to the west, established the Ottoman Empire, in 1453 even the Byzantine Empire was destroyed, changed Constantinople to Istanbul, at the junction of Eurasia, raised their own words.
Whether this Western Turk is the group of people that the Tang Dynasty fought in the past, it is not 100% certain, this account is a bit confusing, and the evidence is not enough due to its age, but it should be correct to say that they are part of the Western Turks who believe in Islam.
When the Ottoman Empire began, the first ten leaders were very capable of fighting, known as the "Tenth Lord", laying a large empire spanning Asia, Africa and Latin America, covering an area of more than 5.5 million square kilometers, dominating the center of Eurasia, like a Eurasian toll station, eating up the trade between China and Europe, suppressing Europe has been in a state of poverty, And Europeans risked their lives to engage in big navigation, the reason is to bypass the Ottoman rogue toll station, directly do business with China, try not to be oiled by him.
In the history of the world, China has been a mess, and the decline is only a matter of nearly three hundred years, so we use the word "national rejuvenation" instead of "national rise", which has long been more than seventy or eighty times, well, we just want to return to the original normal position, unlike those countries that have crossed history like meteors and are so fresh as to be at the top, we often stay here, for us, it is not very rare.
The great voyages of the Europeans opened the colonies, the colonists gave birth to international trade, and international trade gave birth to the modern big city of London, in order to solve the problem of coal for the explosion of the Population of London, and also to speed up the processing of raw materials in the colonies, and finally the steam engine was born, which triggered the Industrial Revolution.
And the source of all this is just to bypass the Ottoman Empire and make a small deal with China.
The Ottoman Empire lasted for 624 years, shoulder to shoulder with the three dynasties of the Chinese Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, with his unique means of survival, militarily, the Ottomans were obviously strong and clear, and they could fight with Britain, France and Russia at the same time at the east and west, fighting back and forth, unlike the Qing Dynasty, which faced the collapse of the colonists, and the battle record was not as good as that of Africans, all the way to shame.
But administratively, the Ottoman Empire was not as good as the Qing Dynasty.
Due to the extremely large and small population, the country is only 15 million people, the Ottoman Empire was forced to make various compromises with the localities, there were various local autonomy, and even in order to avoid the division of the empire, the Ottomans had a set of cruel inheritance system tacitly accepted by the monarchs, called the Fratricide customary law, that is, the prince after ascending the throne must kill all his brothers, hanging more than a dozen brothers in a row at every turn, the later felt too bloody, starting in 1603, changed to his brothers under lifelong house arrest, Many princes were directly imprisoned for depression and mental illness, and some people survived to the throne with illness, which directly brought down the dynasty's qi number.
So Turkey's nervous and eccentric temperament today is formed by the ancestors, who are not suddenly neurotic, but neurotic all the time.
In the stage of Ottoman decline, Britain and France formed an alliance to fight him from the west, Russia had a greater appetite, wanted to go to the sea and Istanbul, and fight him from the east, but Britain and France believed that The Ottomans should fight, the Russian bear should fight, the Russian bear is the first threat in Europe, as long as the Russian bear sits big, it will suspend bullying the Ottoman, and in turn, the three countries will unite to snipe the Russian bear in Crimea.
In this way, the Ottomans were finally completely disintegrated, the Balkan Peninsula was long gone from domination, the Arabs were taken by the British Lawrence, North Africa also ran away, France took Syria and Lebanon, Britain took Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, and Russia demanded that it abandon Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, a six-hundred-year-old super empire, which was dismembered to the core area of Turkey today.
Britain and France at that time the plan was to support a Greek Empire closer to them, form a barrier in Eastern Europe, continue to fight against the Russian bear and Ottoman remnants, Greece was ruled by the Ottoman for hundreds of years, was a stomach full of anger, with the help of the British to take advantage of the situation, in 1920 from Izmir troops, all the way to the west, seeing the imminent destruction of the country, in the First World War, the fierce man Mustafa Kemal, who performed well in World War I, was forced to cut land to the Soviet Union for resources, led the army to kill Greece at a critical moment, and captured the commander-in-chief of the Greek Army in September 1922. The reconquest of Izmir preserved the last core of the Ottoman Empire and established its status as the father of the nation.
Turkey recovered part of the land, but the islands of the Mediterranean sea can not be recovered, Greece's territorial waters are drawn to the Turkish coast, directly stabbed to the throat of Turkey, Turks can swim to the Greek sea, simply bullied to the doorstep, is the result of the division of territory that year.
Therefore, Greece and Turkey are quite incompatible, and the two countries have become a century-old feud, and the international friction is every day, digging holes for each other.
Mustafa Kemal looked at Turkey, which had only this little territory left, and painfully thought about promoting modernization, so he took the gun to the head of the opposition, abolished the sultanate and theocracy, established a republican system, engaged in modern education, banned the use of the Islamic calendar, prohibited the use of Arabic alphabets, prohibited the use of Tarbush hats, non-religious personnel were not allowed to wear black veils and black robes, beards had to pay heavy taxes, and public officials had to wear suits.
Because he was born with a gun and left a legacy for the army, if religious forces returned, the army could stage a coup d'état and return power to the secular government.
Turkey's descendants inherited its legacy, although the vast majority of its territory was in Asia, but it joined the European Union with the intention of becoming a European country.
The European side allows Turkish teams to participate in the Champions League, and also pulls Turkey into NATO, but the matter of joining the European Union, one is that the old enemy Greece is resolutely opposed, there is no room for negotiation, and the other is that other European countries are really not at ease to let an Islamic country into their organization, after all, different nationalities and religions are different, and the hatred has accumulated too deeply for thousands of years, so only Let Turkey be a thug in the periphery, and also let Turkey engage in sports friendship, but it is absolutely impossible to enter the EU to divide the money.
Erdogan in the early years, but also adhering to muster Mustafa Kemal's close to Europe this big strategic line to seek development, also firmly believe that development can only rely on Europe, only integration into Europe can make Turkey rich and strong, so in those years Erdogan, not only dared to shoot down the Russian plane, but also dared to do things in northwest China, completely on the side of the West.
But the difference between Erdogan and Mustafa Kemal is that he only wants European money, he does not want the soul of Europe, he is pro-European, while Islamizing, in 1998 when he was the mayor of Istanbul, he was imprisoned for four months for reciting fundamentalist forbidden poems, and after coming to power in 2003, he built mosques, and built 17,000 in 15 years, firmly on the side of religion.
Erdogan is on the side of Islam with half his feet because Mustafa Kemal's secularization has only been carried out for 15 years, and turkey's conservative forces are still very strong, and in these decades, the people have gradually shown signs of an Islamic resurgence, and he needs this strong ticket warehouse.
Erdogan was Prime Minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014, when the real power of the Prime Minister was higher than that of the President, in 2007 he amended the Constitution through a referendum, changing the parliamentary election of the president to direct election, and became the president after 2014.
In 2016, Erdogan experienced a life-and-death coup (see the old book "Erdogan's Card Game"), which occurred eight months after he shot down a Russian plane, and Putin complained with virtue and told him in advance of the military's impending coup.
Erdogan dared to hit the Russian plane, because the European Union verbally promised to let him join in 2016, so he plucked up the courage to make a shot, but the EU is a ruthless scumbag, Ethiopian after the plane they did not recognize, angry Erdogan remembered a lifelong vendetta, in April 2021, when the European Commission President von der Leyen went to Turkey, Erdogan still remembered the old grudge, even did not give her a chair.
After receiving Putin's news this time, Erdogan strengthened his determination to abandon the European Union Russia, engaged in a plot to make a deal of it, let the army suppress it immediately after the coup d'état, and purgeed a large number of opponents, including 5 generals, 2700 judges, 28 mayors, 2000 teachers, and 8000 security personnel.
He also replaced the removed important posts in the four major systems of the Military, Political, and Religious Department with his own people.
Erdogan believed that the coup was carried out by the United States and his political opponent Gulen, so he arrested the American priest Brunson, using this incident as a dividing line, and from then on, he turned his face with the United States and fell to Russia.
Erdogan is also completely dead to Europe, knowing that Europe will never tolerate him, the national strategy will no longer go west, turn to the Middle East and North Africa, intending to become the financial center and leader of the Islamic world, so over the years, Turkey has begun 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 the people of the European Union.
Although Erdogan has played a political steering wheel, Turkey's economic relations with the European Union have been broken.
Yes, we are finally close to talking about inflation.
Any ambitious big country in the world can only strengthen itself through industrialization, and Turkey wanted to do the same in the Kemal period, but it is only a semi-industrialized country until now, and it cannot produce complex industrial products, most of which are primary industrial products, because they are walking and walking, and the road is crooked.
From the beginning of the 1920s, modern Turkey has engaged in the development of import substitution industries, advanced equipment is not developed by itself, basically rely on buying, usually rely on exporting raw materials and primary industrial products to make money, and then use trade barriers to protect its own industry.
In fact, it is the common comprador road used by Latin American countries, which is just the opposite of the independent road that China wants to build on its own.
In fact, for a fledgling developing country, Turkey's choice is relatively easy, the people do not have to suffer so deeply as soon as the country is founded, but the upper limit is not high, and the development cannot go up to a certain stage, China's choice is extremely difficult, but the upper limit is very high, and the quality of life of the people in China in the first thirty years is so low, because it has chosen the most difficult road of industrialization.
But Turkey's cycle did not go through, Turkey did not have oil to earn foreign exchange, lack of money, can not buy advanced industrial equipment, at the beginning can only engage in steel industry, construction and other infrastructure, as well as some simple entry-level industries.
Countries with no energy independence, weak basic industries, the balance of payments current account and trade continued deficits, the economy has a little wind, international capital runs away, which makes Turkey's inflation, historically one of the most serious countries in the world, from 1971 onwards, their inflation was as high as 19%, until Erdogan held inflation in 2004, this 32 years, Turkey's inflation data is almost desperate, even reached a staggering 105% in 1994. I don't know how the people of this country survived.
Turkey's inflation data over the years, their ancestors have long been accustomed to such a stimulating life
Between 1995 and 2004, inflation devalued the Turkish currency to the point where toilet paper was inferior, when the largest denomination was 20 million lira and the smallest coin was 50,000 lira.
Erdogan was prime minister in 2003, and before that, when he was mayor of Istanbul in 1999 and 2001, he managed Turkey's economic crises with a series of times and handled them quite well, so he gained prestige and climbed to the prime ministerial position.
In 1999, in the face of 65% inflation, Turkey's central bank sacrificed a benchmark interest rate of 100% and still failed to beat inflation, which impressed Erdogan and affected his strange behavior today.
When Erdogan took office, with the assistance of Finance Minister Kemal Dervi, he did a good job in the economic work.
Dervish, who has a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University and a former vice president of the World Bank, has two brushes in his hand, and he is the main culprit in curbing inflation in Turkey, after all, Erdogan is a peddler, good at politics and neglecting the economy.
Delviş received $16 billion in bailouts from the IMF and replaced the "lira" with the "new lira", which is 1:1000000 against the lira, which was officially listed in circulation in 2005 and finally suppressed inflation for more than 30 years.
There are three main reasons why Erdogan has been able to rule Turkey for many years, the first of which has a lot to do with the fact that he finally suppressed inflation during his tenure.
The second reason is that he catered to the return of Islamic culture, turned back the clock in history, built mosques wildly, withdrew from the Istanbul Convention for the protection of women, made women endure domestic violence, transformed the Turkish Religious Affairs Bureau from a department that controlled and restricted Islam to an institution that promoted Islam, abolished the ban on wearing a headscarf, restricted drinking, and even did not hesitate to convert the famous Hagia Sophia into a mosque.
After the Ottomans took Constantinople, they converted the Hagia Sophia into a mosque, adding four minarets, in 1934 Mustafa Kemal, who advocated secularization, changed it into a museum, forbidding its religious function, and when I went to visit in 2016, I also saw a huge circular lid hanging inside the cathedral, covering part of the Orthodox portrait, and it was still a museum, and it turned out to be less than four years, and in 2020, Erdogan changed the museum into a mosque in order to cater to Muslims who make up 90% of the country's population.
On the day of the decree, after 86 years, prayers were renewed in the minaret outside the cathedral, Muslims knelt in the black press outside, and the Islamic Turkey returned, and Mustafa Kemal would have vomited blood if he had seen it with his own eyes.
The third reason for Erdogan's popularity is that he did allow for a brief boom in the Turkish economy.
Erdogan made the Turkish economy develop suddenly, mainly by borrowing foreign debt, selling state-owned assets, and printing money in a big way.
In order to develop Turkey, Erdogan borrowed a lot of money from the outside world, and now the foreign debt has exceeded 450 billion US dollars, accounting for 56% of Turkey's GDP, while the country's foreign exchange reserves are only 60 billion US dollars, and the sovereign debt crisis has burned eyebrows, of which the most borrowed is the European Union.
Source: The Paper
In addition to borrowing, another major way to make money is the "privatization strategy", Erdogan has been selling state-owned assets since he came to power in 2003, almost all state-owned assets are auctioned, before 2008, hundreds of state-owned enterprises including energy, transportation, industry, and banking were sold, and after 2008, all state-owned enterprises in tobacco, animal husbandry, lottery and other industries were sold.
Imagine what it would be like for us to privatize petroChina, China Tobacco, Sinopec, China Telecom, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, etc.
Erdogan frantically sells state-owned enterprises, one is that he believes that the privatized economy is more dynamic, and the other is that the European Union has given him conditions to reduce the proportion of state-owned enterprises, "implement a free market, reduce economic intervention", which is the old way of Western PUA developing countries.
Printing money is simple, in more than ten years, Turs's M2 has increased by 24 times.
What did Erdogan do with all this money?
I carefully checked the data, mainly infrastructure, real estate, military industry three categories.
In this area of infrastructure, Erdogan has invested 135 billion US dollars to build railways, airports, canals, etc., including the 30 billion US dollars investment, 45 kilometers of istanbul canal; The new Istanbul airport with an investment of US$12 billion and a capacity of 200 million passengers; The world's first Marmara submarine tunnel across Eurasia with a total length of 13.6 kilometers; the world's first double-decker tunnel for automobiles with a total length of 14.6 kilometers; and the Ilisu Dam with a height of 135 meters.
At present, the top ten super projects under construction in the world account for the largest proportion not in China, but turkey, accounting for a total of six.
From 2003 to 2018, Turkey's foreign-funded enterprises increased by 10 times, the economy is too dependent on the basic plate of foreign capital, so that insecure citizens invest in real estate, the construction industry accounts for about 20% of Turkey's GDP, so that Turkey's urbanization rate reached 75%, becoming one of the main driving forces to promote Turkey's economic development.
In 2021 alone, Turkey has a total of 1491856 sets of real estate transactions throughout the year, and the average increase in house prices in 56 countries around the world in 2021 is 9.4%, and Turkey's house price increase is the first in the world, up 35.5%.
In 2021 Chinese bought a total of 963 houses in Turkey, the data is not much but the potential is great, in order to pull the Chinese to take over, turkey in recent years, but also did a lot of buy a house to send nationality advertising.
However, Turkish construction companies have grown rapidly during this wave of real estate development, and the local Chinese have told me that their construction companies 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 over the years, investing in real estate and basic industries, not developing industry, promoting industrial upgrading, and not developing high-tech enterprises.
I found this sentence to be wrong, compared with China, of course, it is not enough, but Turkey is still worthy of a semi-industrial country.
In recent years, Turkey's steel, automobiles, textiles, cement, and electronics have developed rapidly, and they can be exported to some poor countries, and military equipment can be exported to Pakistan, the Philippines and other countries.
Turkey, through the introduction of military technology from NATO countries, but also continues to extort and buy technology from other countries, can now produce unmanned aerial vehicles, Altai tanks, self-propelled howitzers, multi-caliber rocket launchers, amphibious infantry fighting vehicles, short-range ballistic missiles, helicopter gunships, electromagnetic railguns, etc., 75% of weapons and ammunition can be produced domestically.
When there was a war between Azerbaijan and Armenia last year, Azerbaijan relied on Turkey's drones to win the war.
Drone technology is actually a good reflection of Turkey's current industrial level, most of their drones copycat Chinese models, all imitations, once they encounter the master will be timid, but to deal with the Middle East rookie country is more than enough, is the kind of "steal a few tricks, the level is average, but hit ordinary people enough" level.
However, it is difficult for the military industry to put into the market to make money, infrastructure and real estate can not be exchanged for foreign exchange, Turkey has no oil and gas, and there is no export of industrial products, making it more and more difficult for the state finances.
Can you think about what's around you that is made in Turkey? In our daily lives, the only Turkish products we can come into contact with are probably only rose water.
Erdogan has let the Turks live a good life for about a decade by borrowing foreign debt, selling state assets, and printing money, but all this hot money has gone to the infrastructure, real estate, and military industries, and this rush to achieve development routes has preserved Erdogan's throne, but distorted Turkey's future.
In 2003, when Erdogan took over the country, the per capita GDP was 4760 US dollars, three axes down, in 2013 its per capita GDP reached a staggering 12614 US dollars, 10 years, per capita GDP nearly tripled, once ahead of China, can be regarded as one of the world's contemporary economic miracles.
At that time, Turkey's development momentum made the world's economists look at it blankly, and it felt that Turkey had embarked on a development path with Islamic characteristics, and China's kind of bitter road to industrial products came as quickly as Ethiopia and Sudan.
But soon Ethiopian Sudan was beaten by reality, there was no solid industrial system, the prosperity bought by foreign debt and selling assets was always only a short-term prosperity, and the country soon fell into the situation of high inflation, high foreign debt, and high trade deficit, making the currency extremely easy to depreciate and the domestic economy was turbulent.
In 2004, Erdogan made some efforts to suppress the terrible inflation of 32 years, and only 13 years later, in 2017, Turkey returned to this situation where annual inflation was above 10%.
In 2021, China's per capita GDP reached $12,000, surpassing Turkey's $9,500.
The development of the economy of a big country still has to go through a painful industrial process, and all countries that want to avoid this process have a short-term prosperity, and they can get good results for a while, but they can't get good results for a lifetime.
In the face of the Fed's interest rate hike, Ethiopian Sudan is so ironclad, bent on using interest rate cuts to resist the Fed's interest rate hikes, making inflation a staggering 78.6%, ranking first in the world.
Economists around the world can only spread their hands: economics and Erdogan, two always have to die.
The reason why Ethiopian has made such a strange move stems from his distrust of traditional economics and the fight against inflation.
In the economic crisis he personally experienced in 1999, the central bank responded by raising interest rates, and the 100% interest rate still could not prevent capital flight, which made him lose confidence in this model.
Since September 2021, Erdogan has made up his mind not to raise interest rates, and he believes that "interest rate hikes will not suppress inflation, only economic growth, and interest rate hikes are the murderers of driving up prices." ”
He also said that he "wants to abandon traditional monetary policy and fight a war of economic independence." ”
Erdogan fired three central bankers, a deputy governor, and three members of the Monetary Policy Committee in three years simply because they insisted on raising interest rates against inflation.
It wasn't until the new governor, Kafchoglu, took office, that the dudes opposed high interest rates, and finally stopped firing people.
Kafchogru firmly implemented a strategy of no interest rate hikes but no rate cuts, but for every time he cuts interest rates, the Turkish lira falls against the dollar.
In 2021, the Turkish lira depreciated by about 44% and in the first half of 2022 by another 22%.
In 2005, Erdogan launched a 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 of a shock to our lives would be if the renminbi suddenly depreciated to 70:1 against the dollar.
Currency depreciation has led to higher energy costs, with electricity use in Turkey's households and industries rising by 15% and 25% and natural gas rising by 30% in June, creating a vicious circle of depreciation and inflation.
ENAgroup, Turkey's independent economic research institute, believes that Turkey's real inflation rate is actually close to 160%.
Erdogan knew that a rate cut would cause great inflation and would lead to a depreciation of the lira, and he dared to go his own way because he was convinced that a rate cut would bring economic growth and would force European creditors to save himself at the last minute.
He intends to use magic to defeat magic.
I specifically consulted a few Chinese who are doing business in Turkey, according to them, life is indeed a lot more difficult, last year the watermelon was 2 lira a pound, this year it is already 5 lira a pound, the price of the house and all the daily necessities have doubled, and some items have tripled.
The salaries of public officials rose by 40 percent, and the minimum wage was adjusted by two years with inflation, 50 percent in 2021 to 4,250 lira, and in 2022 to 5,550 lira, or 2,100 yuan.
In addition to wage increases, the other is that the government subsidizes, engages in an affordable market, and occasionally launches some materials, and the local Chinese say that this kind of market is carried out once or twice a week to ensure that civilians do not have a problem eating.
Because Turkey has at least completed semi-industrialization, furniture textile products can still be self-sufficient, so the basic life of the people has not collapsed for the time being.
Currency depreciation also unexpectedly boosted the economy, with Turkey's exports rising 18.5 percent to $23.4 billion in June, a new monthly high.
Tourism has also benefited, with tourism revenue soaring 182% in 2021 and airport passenger traffic up 72%, bringing in tens of billions of dollars a year, such as the tourist resort of Bodrum, which is expected to attract 1.5 million tourists this year, exceeding pre-pandemic levels.
Erdogan's magical interest rate cut against inflation law, to see the global economic scholars stunned, this is other countries are not feasible, he is by: salary increase + parity market + tourism and foreign trade and other industries development, stabilized the domestic does not break out of the big crisis, but the inflation pressure is still very large, in addition to the necessities of survival, most of the things rose particularly fiercely, Turkish civilians said that life is difficult.
So why are the Turkish people, bearing the world's largest inflation, still so moderate, without the outbreak of large demonstrations and riots?
First, because the Turkish people have seen the big world before, the inflation of the past 32 years is their daily life, and the last decade has not had big inflation, but it is a surprise.
Second, the general election is about to be held in 2023, and there is no use in protesting now, "It is better to endure it and vote next year." "Although Erdogan has deep roots, his AKP party, the support rate has slipped to 32%, surpassed by the opposition "Republican People's Party", after the devaluation of Lila in 2018, the AKP has lost the local elections in the two most important cities, coupled with the increasing number of young people born after 2000 have the right to vote, Erdogan has a greater chance of losing re-election, unless he suppresses inflation to more than a dozen points in these months and wins back the hearts and minds of the people.
But as it stands, the lira will continue to depreciate and inflation will continue to rise, making it seem difficult to reverse.
This nearly nine-thousand-word article, of course, is not just about inflation, but also about the reasons why Turkey is in the current predicament.
Turkey has more temptations and more resistance than China on the road to a modern secular industrialized country.
The temptation is their unique geographical location, Europe and Asia eat both ends, enter the Eu, retreat to West Asia, perennial with the refugee problem to threaten Europe, a displeased refugee into the EU, Europe and him can not do anything, can only suppress while begging for forgiveness.
The resistance was that they did not form the financial protection of China, nor did they complete a deep revolution at home, Mustafa Kemal did not control the religious forces, religion quickly returned after his death, and in the early stage of development, it relied on compradors, so that the country is still a semi-industrial country, and there is no complete industrialization like China.
Erdogan quickly made the country rich for ten years, relying on short-term operation methods such as chicken blood, not a long-term healthy economic operation model.
So Turkey went around and back to the old historical path of high inflation.
When I went to Turkey in 2016, I used to be a guest in the local town, and the houses in Turkey are generally red tiles and white walls, neatly arranged, and look no less than Spain, but when you look closely, its sense of refinement is obviously weaker than that of Eastern and Western European countries, and the interior decoration of the room is passable, but it is not luxurious.
It seems that Turkey's economy is very good from a distance, and if you analyze it carefully, it is still not good.
But Turkey is not too bad, to be fair, its industrialization in the Middle East is the best, they can produce freezers, exhaust fans, pressure reducing valves, but also can produce photovoltaic panels, clothing, shoes, is the most complete 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, began to develop its own industry through the comprador road, after World War II, only China has not given up financial sovereignty, gritted its teeth and completed the whole process of industrialization, in fact, China is the other world, most countries simply can not afford China's deep development pain.
It is only because of its extremely rare geographical advantages that Turkey dares to repeatedly go back and forth between Europe and the Russian period, and behind its always somewhat neurotic governing strategy, it is because he knows that Europe must support him, open the door and let refugees fill Europe without supporting the bottom, and explode the foreign debt himself without saving him.
To put it bluntly, Turkey is a country whose strength and ambition do not match, and he is precisely a spoiled and arrogant child, often doing some strange things.
Because of the usual unscrupulousness, there will be riots to deal with inflation, and this strange country makes people feel more and more that it is so demon.