China's Concerns Regarding Afghanistan

For John, BLUF:  The current Administration is working on pulling US forces out of Afghanistan, where we have sunk billions of dollars, but seem unable to bring democracy and (classic) liberalism.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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China's Strategic Assessment of Afghanistan

From War on the Rocks, by Academic Yun Sun,♠ 8 April 2020.

Here is the lede plus five:

With the U.S. troop withdrawal in sight, Afghanistan's future seems less certain than ever.  As a neighboring state with significant interests at stake, how does China view and prepare for Afghanistan's future?

Since 9/11, the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan has presented a dilemma for China.  On the one hand, Beijing instinctively sees American troops in China's "backyard" as a serious strategic threat.  However, China believes that it has benefited from the security that the United States has provided there, especially in terms of curtailing the growth and spread of anti-China terrorist groups.  The implication of this dilemma is that China wants the United States to withdraw — but only when the withdrawal is responsible and does not leave a chaotic power vacuum that would destabilize the region.  The reality, however, is that the American decision regarding Afghanistan will be made in Washington — not Beijing — and that China must react to whatever moves the United States makes going forward.

The United States and the Taliban signed a peace agreement in Doha on Feb. 29, 2020.  The agreement has been met with official optimism in the United States.  China, however, is less sanguine about the agreement.  Beijing has little confidence in the internal Afghan peace process.  Instead, China expects that the U.S.-brokered agreement will lead to more instability, and that the region eventually will have to seek multilateral alternatives — including U.N. peacekeeping operations — to escape the abyss.

China's Historical Posture Toward Afghanistan

China's fundamental interest in Afghanistan is stability.  Chaos in Afghanistan, from Beijing's perspective, stokes Islamic fundamentalism that threatens domestic security in China, particularly in Xinjiang.  If anything, China is not a revisionist power in Afghanistan.  Given the choice, China would prefer to see an Afghanistan with internal stability and a functional government that is preferably but not necessarily neutral among great powers.  Having witnessed the quagmire in which Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States were each entrapped, China has always been convinced that Afghanistan is the "graveyard of empires."  Traditionally, Beijing believed that it should avoid serious entanglement in Afghan affairs at all costs.

China's overall view of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is a mixture of conflicting factors.  On the negative side, China saw the invasion as the United States establishing a foothold in the heart of the Eurasian continent that could then be used to contain China.  Beijing views the ongoing war with the Taliban as the United States "irresponsibly" destabilizing the country and rattling the region.  From the Chinese perspective, 9/11 and the ensuing war in Afghanistan fostered the radicalization of Muslims in the region and directly contributed to the unrest in China's northwest Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.  But, on the positive side, the Chinese have viewed America's wars since 9/11 as the best thing that has happened to China since the end of the Cold War — a god-sent "window of strategic opportunity" that gave Beijing a decade to build its strength while Washington was distracted, bogged down, and spending trillions of dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  While the United States needed China's nominal support for its war on terror, China played up the terrorist threats in Xinjiang, using the global war on terror to justify its policy in the Uighur region.

On the one hand China is concerned about Muslim radicals meddling in China internal affairs, such as the Uighur community.  On the other hand, China is no encourager of freedom and democracy.  We can expect China to try and pull Afghanistan into its Belts and Roads initiative.  But, can they export their social credit system to the very decentralized "nation" of Afghanistan.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Yun Sun is the director of the China program and co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center.