Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: China

China

Chinese Investments in Afghanistan: Strategic ecnomic move or incentive for the Emirate?

Thomas Ruttig •

When the West withdrew from Afghanistan, many assumed its acquisitive neighbour, China, would reap the economic benefits of the change of government in Kabul. Afghanistan has immense, but largely untouched mineral and hydrocarbon wealth, including strategically valuable metals, such as lithium. That assumption was fed in the first half of 2023 by a flurry of […]

Regional Relations Read more

Afghanistan After the US Withdrawal: An Elusive Peace – Three Questions to Thomas Ruttig

Thomas Ruttig •

Institut Montaigne, 30 April 2021 The Paris-based nonprofit, independent think tank did an interview for its blog with AAN’s Thomas Ruttig to map out possible scenarios after the US and allied troop withdrawal from Afghanistan (in English).

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Helmand peace marchers in front of the Russian embassy. Photo: People's Peace Movement/2018

A Troika of Four: Looking back at the March 2021 Afghanistan meeting in Moscow

Thomas Ruttig •

The ‘extended troika’ meeting in Moscow on 18 March did not spark a significant new impulse in the search for peace in Afghanistan. Instead, it followed a well-known pattern. Foreign powers offered platitudes about an ‘Afghan-led, Afghan-owned’ peace process, again, while they insist on setting the timeline themselves and handpick those who are to be […]

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Climbing on China’s Priority List: Views on Afghanistan from Beijing

Thomas Ruttig •

Since the never completed withdrawal of NATO troops in Afghanistan, China has become more involved in one of its most conflictive neighbour’s affairs. It has offered to connect the country with its multi-billion dollar project, the Belt and Road Initiative, which includes the so-called Chinese-Pakistan Economic Corridor. AAN’s co-director Thomas Ruttig has found – after […]

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Bozoi Gumbaz in Badakshan where the old Soviet base was built nearby to stop infiltration of mujahedin coming in from China. Photo: Author (2017).

Tilting at Windmills: Dubious US claims of targeting Chinese Uyghur militants in Badakhshan

Franz J Marty • Ted Callahan •

In early February 2018, US forces conducted airstrikes in Afghanistan’s north-eastern province of Badakhshan, supposedly targeting ‘support structures’ of the ‘East Turkistan Islamic Movement’ (ETIM), allegedly a group of Uyghur extremists hailing from China’s far west said to be focused on attacking the Chinese state. (1) United States Forces – Afghanistan claimed the strikes targeted […]

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A view of the quadrilateral talks in Kabul. Source: Etilaat-e Ruz.

In Search of a Peace Process: A ‘new’ HPC and an ultimatum for the Taleban

Thomas Ruttig •

Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the US – the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) – are pushing to open a new chapter in the ongoing search for a peace process for Afghanistan. The group has now met for the fourth time, although direct talks with the Taleban have yet to begin. Earlier this week, it issued an […]

War and Peace Read more

Talks with the Taleban, Again: This time for real?

Thomas Ruttig •

Over the past weeks, Kabul buzzed with rumours that talks with the Taleban would begin soon, specifically, in the first week of March. That particular week is now past and nothing has happened. But this does not mean that rumours were completely false or that no movement is being made towards new talks with the […]

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The men of the Heart of Asia process at their Beijing meeting. Photo: Pajhwok

More bilateral than multilateral effects: The Afghanistan conference in China

S Reza Kazemi •

The fourth foreign ministerial conference of the Afghanistan-centred Heart of Asia/Istanbul process in Beijing on 31 October 2014 demonstrated a lack of progress in the regional cooperation in many respects, from its organisation to the funding. Nevertheless, it produced a few, rather mixed, results. These include, at a minimum, developments in Sino-Afghan relations and in Sino-American […]

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Presidents Ghani and Xi, during the former's second trip abroad, after umrah in Saudi Arabia. Photo c/o ToloNews.

On the Road through Beijing (and Kathmandu): The new Afghan leadership’s attempts to engage with Asia

S Reza Kazemi •

Compelled by widening economic and other challenges, the new Afghan government seems determined to diversify Afghanistan’s foreign relations by slowly forging stronger economic and political ties with countries in the region. For this purpose, it has at least two cards to play: the country’s geographic position as a corridor for regional trade and its natural […]

Regional Relations Read more

Happy New Year of the Horse [Afghan-Qing relations]

AAN •

Raggazi Consulting blog, 31 January 2014 Mario Ragazzi celebrates the new Chinese Year of the Horse with a fascinating story of a diplomatic mission sent by Ahmad Shah Durrani to the court in Beijing in 1762, before the background of Qing expansion in Central Asia. Although the Afghan king sent four splendid horses (see them depicted […]

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Stabilizing Afghanistan a major diplomatic challenge

admin •

People’s Daily (China), 25 September 2012 … including for China, writes a commentator with the interesting name Chen Chenchen in Beijing’s official English-language daily, the Global Times. ‘Many are speculating about the long-term ambitions of Beijing, believing that the emerging power is seeking a larger role in post-NATO Afghanistan and is looking for greater influence […]

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‘Soft’ assistance for Afghanistan

admin •

China Daily, 16 June 2012 An analysis of China’s Afghanistan policy by Yang Shu, director of Institute of Central Asian Studies, Lanzhou University.

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