Any Afghanistan-Pakistan-China axis involving policy coordination is a major risk for India. China, meanwhile, is a systemic rival to India and poses economic, military, and strategic threats. Pakistan is a long-term adversary that has actively funded and fomented armed militancy against India, hosting (among others) the organizers of the murderous 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. These regional dynamics, with Pakistan and China becoming increasingly close, should be of enormous concern to Indian policymakers.
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With the Taliban government desperately in need of patronage – 80% of the previous Afghan government’s $5.5 billion budget was financed by external assistance – China seems ideally suited to fill the breach.Įnjoy unlimited access to the ideas and opinions of the world’s leading thinkers, including weekly long reads, book reviews, topical collections, and interviews The Year Ahead annual print magazine the complete PS archive and more – for less than $9 a month. China’s priority vis-à-vis Afghanistan is to ensure that the Taliban offer neither support nor refuge to Uyghur dissidents from Xinjiang, and do nothing to disturb the functioning of the CPEC. The warm overtures appear to be mutual, with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Afghanistan’s new first deputy prime minister, calling China a “ trustworthy friend,” despite its systematic persecution of its own minority Muslim population. There is even talk of extending the CPEC to Afghanistan. It is seeking to tap Afghanistan’s considerable underexploited mineral resources, especially rare earths, and reopen the Mes Aynak copper mine. With economic and strategic gains ripe for the taking, China has announced that it will do business with the Taliban. Significantly, Foreign Minister Wang Yi formally received a Taliban delegation in July. The Chinese have invested $62 billion in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the single largest project of its transnational Belt and Road Initiative, and are anxious that Taliban extremists do not jeopardize it. Less overtly but arguably more importantly, China has been working to make the best of a delicate situation. This time, Pakistan’s control is supposedly a little less absolute, but that did not prevent ISI chief Faiz Hameed from traveling to Kabul soon after its fall to preside triumphantly over the formation of the new Taliban government. When the Taliban ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, their “Islamic Emirate” functioned as a wholly owned subsidiary of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s response – notably his statement that the Taliban’s return to power was akin to throwing off “the shackles of slavery” – highlights what was already known: Taliban-run Afghanistan will be a creature of Pakistan. For evidence of the destabilizing impact of Kabul’s fall, just look at the reactions of Afghanistan’s neighbors. The Taliban’s victory, following 20 years of unsuccessful American-led “nation-building” efforts in Afghanistan, will not only greatly embolden their fellow jihadists, but will also shake up the region’s geopolitics.