Turkey and China:

Although not letting the Egyptians residing within the Southern European countries was seen as a very scummy move by people all over the western world, there wasn't too much outcry outside of the US due to the fact that if the same thing had happened to any of the countries that were criticizing the southern European countries right now, they would do the exact same thing.

Thankfully for Egypt, thanks to the outcry in the US to help Egypt, the US decided to take away economic the economic support they were sending to Ethiopia and give it to Egypt, as a way to show their allegiance to Egypt, and also to try and make it up to them for not being more involved with their war against Ethiopia.

By doing this though, they unintentionally gave China another useful puppet, Ethiopia had always been more of a Chinese ally to begin with, but they didn't commit entirely because they were receiving economic aid from the US, so with the US money out of the question, Ethiopia further solidified its allegiance to China.

As for why they were a powerful weapon, it was because through them not only had china gained second-hand influence over Sudan, but they also had a puppet capable of keeping a US ally, Egypt, in check. Although this was a problem for the US, they had already taken the stance to support Egypt and didn't want to lose face in front of its other allies by making a deal with Ethiopia in order to take away its allegiance to China. Plus, the US didn't see it as necessary to declare war against Ethiopia.

After seeing everything play out from the sidelines, Turkey was inspired to do the same thing Ethiopia did, just that with different intentions. Turkey after receiving a lot of backlashes ended up damming both the Tigris and Euphrates rivers with the intention of 'increasing the use of clean energy' within their country.

Everyone knew though, that it was really just to cut the water supply from Iraq, another country that heavily depended on river water to sustain its agricultural needs, this time though, it didn't create as much impact internationally as Egypt did, it did still do a lot of damage to Iraq and its populous, leading to people beginning to leave the country.

Thing was that, unlike Ethiopia, Turkey was willing to undam the rivers if Iraq became a puppet state, fearing that eventually the populous would revolt in an attempt to get the government to accept Turkeys deal, they accepted, they had seen what had happened to Egypt, and they knew that accepting the deal was still the better of the two outcomes.

Before outside forces could get involved though, turkey announced that it would start constructions of new sources of clean energy, to stay true to its 'original' motives and then assured that the US would have no change in its access to trade oil with Iraq, which seemed to stop the US from further action.

And since there was only s temporary inconvenience for the populous of Iraq, there wasn't much outcry for the US to take action. After everything calmed down, Turkey solidified its relations with China, not as an ally per say (for fear of the US intervening), but just as a bystander, basically, they wouldn't do anything to China or its allies as long as China didn't do anything to hurt them.

China, although slightly disappointed to not have a new ally that would help secure its influence over the middle east, was still very cooperative, at the end of the day, if somebody isn't your ally, it's best to make sure they don't become your enemy, plus, with Turkey's proximity to Egypt, it was still a beneficial deal for China.

Over in the US, although China hadn't been making any moves themselves, and other countries were starting to turn to it whenever they were going to oppose a country guaranteed by the US, the US was beginning to become wary of China, even more than it already was, and began increasing surveillance of their movement, slowly reaching the level at which Russia and North Korea were treated.

And while the US government knew that China wasn't yet a threat, it knew that it was slowly beginning to become a ticking timebomb and that it was best to start making it so that public opinion of China slowly began to be one of anger, and wariness, kind of like how most Americans see Russia and North Korea.

Thankfully, since the US populous already felt that way toward Russia due to its communist past and tendencies, all the US had to do was get the news, and media, in general, to start focusing on the fact that just like Russia, China was also had communist tendencies, therefore slowly making US public opinion towards China become similar to Russia.

This was especially easy because of the fact that Democrats and Liberals couldn't deny that China was a threat to the US on par or even potentially worse than Russia, while the Republicans were more than happy to join the bandwagon due to the fact that they were very adamant against their anti-socialism ideals, even if they did sometimes take it to the extreme.

It was a very rare moment of bipartisanship, where despite both sides hating each other, and basically being opposites, both could come together when it came to being against communism. China was of course disappointed by the way everything was playing out in the western world, but before they could even attempt to do anything, a golden opportunity had been given to them on a silver platter.

In central Asia, Tajikistan had ambitious tried to follow in the steps of Turkey, and dammed up the rivers that sustained Uzbekistan, which had recently become even more dependent on said rivers because of the fact that the Aral sea had been slowly evaporating, and eventually, it was obvious that it would dry up in a couple of years.

Thing was that unlike in the other situations, Uzbekistan had a stronger military than Tajikistan, by a lot, and that added up with a stagnant economy, and oppressive political system, led to Uzbekistan being able to easily defeat and take over Tajikistan, before Uzbekistan could bask in the glory of expansion post 20th century though, China made a move.

Thing was that Tajikistan was an ally of China and that China wanted to expand its influence further, so it took the opportunity to announce that it was declaring war with the purpose of liberating its fallen ally, and since the US didn't have strong ties with Uzbekistan, and China was liberating a country, they could only sit back and watch, unable to do anything.