China looks for ways to help fill void in Afghanistan without overcommitting itself
- Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit neighbouring states before a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which Beijing wants to play a bigger role
- China wants to work with neighbouring countries to ensure peace and stability after the withdrawal of US troops
China is looking for ways to help fill the power vacuum left by the United States in Afghanistan but is unlikely to send in peacekeeping troops, foreign policy observers said ahead of Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s three-country tour of Central Asia.
This week Wang will visit three of China’s central Asian neighbours – Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – and attend a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a Eurasian regional security pact, and the SCO-Afghanistan contact group.
Wang’s visit next week is aimed at “promoting peace and stability in Afghanistan”, foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Friday.
“The development of the situation in Afghanistan is at a critical juncture. As close neighbours of Afghanistan, the SCO member states can play a positive role in promoting the peace, reconciliation and reconstruction process in Afghanistan,” he said in Beijing.
Du Youkang, a former diplomat and international affairs researcher at Fudan University in Shanghai, pointed out that all three countries Wang Yi was visiting shared borders with Afghanistan and had significant immigrant populations from the war-torn country, adding that the hurried US withdrawal had left an unprecedented new security challenge for the SCO.