The real reason China wants peace in Afghanistan

Like many superpowers before it, Beijing is discovering just how difficult it is to establish a presence in a region famed for self-destruction

It has a vested interest in Afghanistan’s security – it is vital for the success of Gwadar Port, a key hub in Xi Jinping’s ambitious belt and road plan

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Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi (centre), and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif join hands after a joint dialogue in 2017. Photo: AFP

Published: 1:00pm, 4 Jan 2020Updated: 8:46pm, 17 Feb 2020

The US$60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – unveiled five years ago by Chinese President Xi Jinping in Islamabad – was envisioned as a game-changer for Beijing’s insolvent ally. In due course, it was hoped that the CPEC would provide a springboard for the extension of Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative into Afghanistan and Iran, and onwards into the hydrocarbon-rich Gulf.

With the onset of 2020, however, China finds itself mired in the region’s political quagmire, unsure of the outcomes of its economic connectivity endeavour. Like the invading superpowers that have previously tried, and failed, to establish a strategic corridor between the Gulf and Central Asia, Beijing has discovered that the countries on its western flank have a frustrating proclivity for self-destructive politics.

This means China will have to work extraordinarily hard in 2020 to avert the mess brewing on the borders of Xinjiang province, and give the belt and road plan a fighting chance of success in South Asia.

As ever, Afghanistan represents both the biggest opportunity and the most formidable challenge. With presidential elections forthcoming in the United States, President Donald Trump’s administration is moving quickly to end America’s 18-year war with the Taliban. US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has said talks with the insurgent group have reached an “important stage”, suggesting a peace deal is imminent.

But a bitter dispute over the dubious outcome of Afghanistan’s presidential election threatens to upset that apple cart. After three months of arguing over which votes to count or not, President Ashraf Ghani has been declared the winner by a margin just about big enough to prevent a run-off vote against his rival, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.

Ominously, the results showed a geographical north-south split, along the ethnic lines that sparked civil war after Soviet forces pulled out in ignominy in 1989, turning Afghanistan into a breeding ground for global terrorism. This internal division will become more pronounced amid the intensifying electoral dispute between Ghani, who is ethnically Pashtun, and his non-Pashtun rivals. In turn, that will invite competing regional powers to leverage the situation to their rivals’ disadvantage.

Infuriated by the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” policy, Iran has declared its opposition to the ongoing negotiations between the US and the Taliban, saying any deal must be negotiated by Kabul. Poignantly, Tehran justified the move by citing former president George W. Bush’s decision to include it in the so-called Axis of Evil in 2002, soon after it played a central role in piecing together the post-Taliban political dispensation in Afghanistan.

In doing so, Iran has positioned itself as a dangerous spoiler which, acting in concert with Ghani, could delay an Afghanistan peace deal long enough to provoke the temperamental Trump into ordering a unilateral pull-out of American forces – as he did from northern Syria earlier this year.

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