China wants to get involved in Afghanistan after the US has withdrawn.
The primary goal is security against terrorist activities.
Beijing even speaks to the Taliban about this.
Kabul / Tianjin / Munich - What will happen next in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the US troops and their allies? The Taliban are on the rise; there is a threat of a power vacuum and, in the worst case, civil war. What observers have been suspecting for a while has been confirmed this week: China * wants to get involved in the state on the Hindu Kush, with which the People's Republic shares a 75-kilometer border. Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with his Afghan counterpart Mohammad Hanif Atmar a few weeks ago. This week, Wang met with a delegation from the radical Islamic Taliban.
China, like the West, has no more interest in Afghanistan sinking into civil war or becoming an exporter of drugs and terror again. At the same time, as a regional power, Beijing naturally also has its own goals - economically and strategically. At a meeting with his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts in June, Wang Yi promised "to bring the Taliban back into the political mainstream" and offered to host intra-Afghan peace talks.
This would mean that China would play a constructive role that could benefit the country in future economic interests.
For example, Beijing would like to connect Afghanistan to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is one of the central infrastructure projects of the New Silk Road *, by building a motorway from Kabul to Peshawar in Pakistan.
Beijing is also said to be interested in minerals such as ore, copper and lithium, which are stored underground in Afghanistan.
China: Concern for the security of the region
Afghanistan, however, is already in the middle of a civil war with one foot. Since the withdrawal of most western troops, the Taliban have taken over one district after another, many of them without a fight. The Taliban claim to already have 85 percent of the country under their control - observers speak of half. The USA bombed the uprisings partly from the air. "In the absolute best-case scenario, the Afghan government and the Taliban could share power, but that seems more and more like wishful thinking," believes Derek Grossman, defense expert at the US think tank Rand Corporation. However, it has not yet been agreed that the Taliban will take over the entire country; In addition to the Afghan army, regional warlords are preparing to fight the insurgents again.
And so China is first and foremost about security.
The aim must be to effectively contain the spill-over of Afghanistan's security risks to the region and to ensure general stability, said Wang Yi recently in Pakistan.
For the increasingly unstable situation, China has already blamed the US several times for its hasty withdrawal * - most recently at Wang's meeting with American Vice-Secretary of State Wendy Sherman.
Afghanistan: cemetery of the great powers
Ultimately, the Americans failed in Afghanistan just as much as the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War or the British in their confrontation with the Russian Empire during the colonial period.
Afghanistan is therefore known as the “graveyard of empires”.
China should also know this - and yet it still seems to regard engagement as promising or at least necessary.
Beijing is acting politically and therefore speaks to both sides.
Whoever rules in Kabul is less important to China's government than maintaining security in the region.
China's Realpolitik: Talks with the government in Kabul and with the Taliban
At a meeting with Foreign Minister Atmar in mid-July, Wang Yi repeated the offer to hold peace talks in China between the government and the Taliban. Wang also promised Atmar not to act on geopolitical grounds. "China definitely has a role to play in building regional consensus, working with Pakistan and supporting the peace process," Atmar told
Foreign Policy
magazine
. Beijing also exerts the necessary pressure on the Taliban, said Atmar. So Kabul seems to be in favor of China's involvement.
Likewise the Taliban: Their spokesman Suhail Shaheen recently called China a friendly country: "We welcome it for the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan." Of course, the security of Chinese investments will be guaranteed, said Shaheen. Now the holy warriors even traveled to China, led by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, chairman of the Taliban's political committee. Photos from the meeting in the port city of Tianjin show Wang Yi and his deputy standing in line with a larger group of Taliban leaders in traditional robes.
An unusual sight that makes it clear how little the Communist Party of China has ideologically connected with the radical Islamic Taliban: While there has been formal equality between men and women in China since around 1949, the Taliban banned girls from any schooling during their rule and forced all women under a burqa. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, as one of the Taliban's founders, is jointly responsible for this policy. Conversely, China forbids Muslims in Xinjiang * such as the Uyghurs to wear beards or headscarves or to observe the fasting month of Ramadan. The warriors of God and Beijing are therefore certainly not natural allies.
Especially since Beijing has been accusing the Taliban for many years of supporting Islamist terror in China.
Wang Yi called on the Taliban in Tianjin to cut ties with the Islamic Movement of East Turkestan (ETIM).
Beijing blames ETIM for terrorist attacks in the Muslim north-west region of Xinjiang and has been on US terror lists for years.
Wang nevertheless stressed that he recognized the Taliban's role in reconciliation and the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
Afghanistan: Unsafe situation in the Hindu Kush - also with dangers for China
China's only border crossing to Afghanistan is in the lonely area between Xinjiang and the Wakhan Corridor - on the map the so-called “handle” of the country in the extreme northeast. The borders of the 350 km long corridor through a breathtakingly beautiful mountain area were drawn in 1893 as a buffer zone between British India and Tsarist Russia, which were playing power games over raw materials and influence in Central Asia. Beijing is currently building a first gravel road through the isolated strip as a Silk Road project. But now the Taliban have moved into parts of the region. Beijing is likely to be nervous about this.
In mid-July, the dangerousness of the troubled region for China became apparent elsewhere. At least 13 people died and more were injured when a bus carrying Chinese contract workers exploded in Pakistan. The Chinese were on their way to the construction site of a Silk Road project near the Afghan border. Pakistan first looked for the causes of the accident, while Beijing immediately spoke of an attack. Islamabad later also admitted a terrorist background; the country is fighting itself with radical Islamic separatists - many of whom are not very good at China because of the situation in Xinjiang.
Pakistan, on the other hand, has always had a connection to the Afghan Taliban.
"Beijing will rely heavily on Islamabad in order to work productively with the Taliban and perhaps even control them," Grossmann is convinced.
The foreign ministers of China and Pakistan recently agreed to work together on Afghanistan.
Hindu Kush: Great power struggle for supremacy
This, in turn, makes Pakistan's arch-rival India nervous, a country that has always been suspicious of Beijing.
In early July, the Indian Foreign Minister visited Moscow and Tehran, while Taliban officials were spotted in both cities at the same time.
"This raised the question of whether negotiations might be underway behind the scenes," writes Derek Grossmann in
Foreign Policy
.
The situation is generally tense and confusing. In July, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization - an economic and security group consisting of China, India, Pakistan, Russia and four Central Asian countries - put the future stability of Afghanistan high on the agenda of a meeting of foreign ministers. But even there, unity is not far off, warns Derek Grossmann. Beijing's growing influence in the region could raise suspicions in Moscow that China is planning to oust Russia as the dominant power in Central Asia. It seems a bit like the return of the great power games of the 19th century in the region.
And the USA? President Joe Biden * stressed that Afghans could and should decide for themselves how to run their country. Foreign Minister Antony Blinken said in India this week that it would be "positive" if Beijing promotes some kind of government that is "representative and inclusive". Everyone is interested in a peaceful solution. On August 31, Biden claims to have completed the withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is quite possible that the country's future protective power will then be called China.
* Merkur.de
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