Afghanistan: America Moving Out, China Moving In - with Help from Iran
by Lawrence A. Franklin • April 29, 2020 at 5:00 am
Both the United Kingdom and the U.S. State Department have complained to China about the free flow of Chinese weapons to Iran, which then wind up with the Taliban. These include surface-to-air missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, artillery shells, and land mines.
China's $3 billion copper mine investment... in Afghanistan's Logar Province remains under the Taliban's protection. Other Chinese corporations that have initiated investment projects in Afghanistan include the Zinjin Mining Company, the Jiangxi Copper Corporation, and China National Petroleum Corporation.
Beijing and Washington are driving different bargains with the Taliban. China, supported by pro-Taliban elements in Pakistan, apparently hopes to enlist the Taliban to prevent Uighur and Eastern Turkistan Independence Movement (ETIM) fighters from using Afghanistan to launch attacks on the Chinese Province of Xinjiang. The U.S., for its part, wants the Taliban's assurance that it will oppose Al-Qaeda and Islamic State operations on Afghan soil as a prerequisite for a near total troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. The question is, just what is the likelihood of that?
The Trump administration has made clear that it wants to end the forward-positioning of U.S. troops on what it regards as a seemingly endless war in Afghanistan, and the Taliban wholeheartedly agrees. China, in the meantime, has continued to profit from its bilateral commerce and investment in the region, and now appears willing to play a future military role in the area. China has already established a military base in Tajikistan near the Chinese border with Afghanistan....
During the tumultuous two decades of American military presence in Afghanistan, China has been quietly increasing its influence there.
While the Trump Administration is distracted by the coronavirus and its economic fallout, China is now poised to inherit the great power role once played by Britain, Russia and the U.S.
Beijing has deftly maintained low-key but friendly relations with the Taliban since the Islamic movement assumed power in Kabul in 1996. Only China and Pakistan kept their ties with the Taliban when American and Northern Alliance forces drove the terrorist group from power in the autumn of 2001.
China is now the foremost foreign source of investment in Afghanistan. China, for instance, has gained access to three separate oil fields in the Afghan provinces of Sari-i-pul and Faryab and has also invested heavily in extracting copper and iron ore from Afghanistan.
