Taliban takeover in Afghanistan spurs China and other neighbours to consider their alliances

China and Central Asian countries bordering Afghanistan will be spurred by the Taliban takeover to further explore ways to cooperate, according to regional security experts.

This could include talks about setting up a “buffer zone” at the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border, according to Pan Guang, the director of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Studies Centre at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

Following the Taliban’s takeover of the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Sunday, Beijing identified stopping conflict spilling into its far western region of Xinjiang as a top priority, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in a phone call on Monday.

It appears to be a concern shared by Afghanistan’s neighbours, with Iran sharing a border to the west, Pakistan to its east and south, and Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan at its north.

China has taken part in several types of security cooperation with these countries, including a two-day joint anti-terrorism drill with Tajikistan on Wednesday. Beijing and Moscow have co-led the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a Eurasian security alliance with Central and South Asian countries for anti-terrorism purposes and have emphasised cooperation on developments in Afghanistan.

While Russia does not share a border with Afghanistan, it has several military bases in Central Asia and has said it is keen to avoid instability and potential terrorism spreading through the nearby region.

During the Taliban’s advancements through Afghanistan this summer after Washington started removing troops in May, Russia has staged war games with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan on the Afghan border in a show of force.

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Pan was quoted by news website guancha.cn as saying there was a possibility that the Moscow-led security alliance – the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) – would be interested in setting up a buffer zone patrolled by the CSTO at the border of Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

Tajikistan’s government has in the past called on its allies from the ex-Soviet State military alliance – Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia – to help secure its border with Afghanistan.

Pan said such a zone was good for China because it had a border security engagement with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan through another “four-country mechanism” for intelligence sharing and training.

“If the plan is being actualised, it will be very interesting. CSTO’s buffer zone and China’s participation on anti-terrorism drills with Tajikistan would somehow form some sort of mutual support. Even if China is not officially part of the CSTO, its moves would be corresponding to the CSTO’s,” Pan said, adding that China would not be interested in officially joining military alliances.

“What is certain is that [China] will make big defensive moves on developments in Afghanistan, but it will not be done in the speculated way of ‘sending troops into Afghanistan’,” he said.

There have been reports China has a military base in Tajikistan. Both governments have denied it but Tajikistan’s government officials were quoted in a Reuters report in 2016 saying China would sponsor some of its outposts.

Zhang Xin, associate professor of international relations at East China Normal University, said if a buffer zone plan were realised, he believed China would be interested in taking part.

“It will depend on the nature and arrangement of the buffer zone,” he said. “But if it is not of a fully-fledged nature of being part of the military alliance, it is possible that China participates by sending counterterrorism and asylum-related personnel to participate.

“While the CSTO is a military alliance, which is of very different nature to the SCO, it has mutual interests in regional security, and therefore there is room for participation in a buffer zone.”

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Li Wei, a counterterrorism analyst at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing, said he did not consider it in China’s interest to officially take part in CSTO’s potential military moves, and said a buffer zone would be challenging to set up at the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border.

However, he said existing mechanisms such as the SCO were adequate to provide more opportunities for joint military drills and intelligence sharing.

Raffaello Pantucci, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said China had already strengthened its own border with Afghanistan at its Wakhan Corridor, as well as provided support for security forces on the Pakistan and Tajikistan side of the border.

“I do not think the Chinese would necessarily step up their engagement with the CSTO, but would likely try to do more bilateral stuff with the Tajiks,” Pantucci said.

He also said there were limits to how much SCO and CSTO could work together because of their different aims.

“The SCO denies its security aspirations, while the CSTO makes no bones about them. Additionally, while the CSTO is a Russian-driven creation which Moscow can steer as it wants, the SCO is riven by disagreements, and while Beijing might want to steer it, Pakistan and India might have different views.

“Suffice to say trying to do a bit [of a] joint exercise would probably be very complicated and not entirely beneficial. Probably better for the CSTO to do something and invite individual SCO members who are relevant.”