On BalanceFractious domestic politics, not Afghanistan withdrawal, is hastening America’s decline

Name: Fall of Kabul: Asian countries’ response to Afghan refugees
Uploaded: 2021-08-30T17:30:10.000Z
Duration: 5 min 9 s
Description: Fall of Kabul: Asian countries’ response to Afghan refugees

China’s propaganda organs are portraying the US exit as another sign that its influence is waning. But, the reverse might end up being the reality

Many US resources ploughed into Afghanistan will be redeployed in the Indo-Pacific, while the counterterrorism burden will fall more heavily on Beijing and Moscow

3-MIN READ3-MIN

Afghans struggle to reach foreign forces to show their credentials to flee the country, outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 26. Photo: EPA-EFE

Robert Delaney

Published: 1:30am, 31 Aug 2021

In a joint statement over the weekend about Afghanistan, Nato members and nearly 100 other countries declared that they expected the Taliban to allow their nationals and other authorised people to leave the country safely. The absence of China was conspicuous, though perhaps not entirely surprising.

The Chinese government has been treading carefully with respect to Afghanistan, where Washington is enduring another lesson in the pitfalls of military occupation. Always ready to pounce on perceived American missteps, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has so far held back on the kind of rhetoric that it reserves for egregious transgressions such as requests for Beijing to share data on early coronavirus cases.

In a call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday, Foreign Minister Wang Yi accused Washington of creating conditions that “are very likely to offer opportunities for a resurgence” in terrorism. This is mere chiding where one might have expected a blistering broadside.

China’s propaganda organs, of course, are portraying the US withdrawal from Kabul as another in a series of indications of America’s decline. This is amplified in the country’s social media scape, but the sharper minds in the foreign ministry must surely recognise that the reverse might end up being the reality.

Many of the resources that had been ploughed into Afghanistan by the US to stymie terrorists in Central Asia will now be redeployed in the Indo-Pacific as part of joint efforts to deal with China. The counterterrorism burden will now fall more heavily on Beijing and Moscow, two governments that have never endeared themselves to Muslim populations.

05:09

Fall of Kabul: Asian countries’ response to Afghan refugees

For its part, America’s overriding mistake was to not leave Afghanistan sooner. The longer the occupation outlived the demise of al-Qaeda, the more difficult it became to claim that snuffing out the dark forces behind the September 11 attacks was the goal and that Washington was never interested in rebuilding a nation in its own image.