Stimson Center, 23 September 2024
A very concise and informative take on China’s role in (finally failed) Afghanistan peace negotiations, with a useful look back, a number of new detail (at least for me) and a most valuable summary of China’s post-US withdrawal activity by insider Barnett R. Rubin. For example, when he writes:
China treated the U.S.-led intervention differently from the Soviet invasion. The latter it had considered a fundamental violation of the principle of nonintervention, while the former it accepted as an act of legitimate (if clumsily executed) self-defense. China also regarded the hostility between Afghanistan and Pakistan as an obstacle to its regional goals.
After 2001,
China’s official policy was to oppose the U.S.-NATO presence on the Asian mainland, but in bilateral talks it put more emphasis on the importance of not withdrawing prematurely. (…)
By convening large groupings like the SCO and Afghanistan’s neighboring countries, China absolves itself of targeted international criticism of its relations with the Taliban.
Or that:
In Islamabad, the U.S., Saudi, and Chinese intelligence stations met weekly with the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to coordinate aid to the [mujahedin] resistance [during the Soviet occupation].
Or that, in the 1990s,
No one at the time suggested that China might play a role in persuading Pakistan to restrain its clients [not even UN envoy Brahimi].
The piece’s worth also lies in the broader contexts it provides, on US and regional (around Afghanistan) developments. This is particularly useful, as it shines some light on Chinese (and even Russian) realpolitics on Afghanistan, vis-a-vis the US, even when general bilateral relations became more and more strained, and that misguided US policy failed to take some offers of collaboration and therefore contributed to unnecessarily further alienating China and Russia over Afghanistan and finally to its own failure there:
Russia and China had supported the [US-led] operation [in Afghanistan] on the condition that it would be temporary. (…) [But t]he May 23, 2005, U.S.-Afghan joint declaration of “strategic partnership” confirmed the belief in Russia, China, and Iran that the U.S. was exploiting their cooperation in the name of counterterrorism to establish a foothold in continental Asia.
And even more so the 2014 Strategic Partnership Agreement with Afghanistan.
Rubin seems to share this view. He writes about “the apparent determination of the U.S. to make Afghanistan a permanent military outpost.”
Around 2008-09, according to Rubin, “China offered to cooperate on Afghanistan” and took its own initiative of contacting the Taleban in ordere to seek a political solution only after consulting the US, who had “no objection.” According to Rubin,
China was looking for means to manage the threat of insecurity in Afghanistan after a U.S. and NATO withdrawal.
Rubin also sees the US assassination on Taleban leader Mansur in 2016 as an US own goal, possibly triggered by an ISI leak:
Mansur had been the main member of the Taliban leadership pushing for negotiations. China concluded that the U.S. was not serious about peace talks and would always prefer military action. This put an end to bilateral cooperation between China and the U.S. on an Afghan peace process.
The most surprising episode pertains to Russia, though:
[In 2018, the US and Russia’s special Afghanistan envoys] Khalilzad and Kabulov (…) started to develop an unanticipated partnership. (…) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced in Qatar that Khalilzad and Kabulov would be “closely cooperating.” While he did not say so, he suspended the [the Russian led and US-boycotted] Moscow Process.. The next step was to create a mechanism for great-power support of the Doha negotiations.
This seems to have failed. Unfortunately, Rubin doers not elaborate much further.
Rubin concludes, taking air out of a much-hyped hypothesis, both by many (less informed) analysts and media:
Three years after the fall of the Islamic Republic, contrary to some speculation, China is not moving in to play the role previously assumed by the U.S. or the USSR [in Afghanistan]. (…)
[Although ]China became the first country in the world to both send an ambassador to and receive an ambassador from the Taliban, (…) China is still reluctant to commit to new big projects or to formally recognize the Islamic Emirate ahead of other countries.
Also one should not expect miracles from China’s diplomatic engagement:
Beyond offering rhetorical support for inclusive governance, however, China has not yet taken any obvious active steps to support the formation of such a government.
Revisions:
This article was last updated on 1 Oct 2024
