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
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.
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.
China steps in to revive Afghanistan peace talks
Over the past couple of years, China’s State Councillor Wang Yi has also played a key role in mitigating disputes between Kabul and Islamabad. Without his efforts, it is unlikely that the Afghan peace process would have progressed to the tantalising point of resolution.
Wang will have to ramp up his efforts as a good-faith go-between to ensure that the negotiations between the US and the Taliban, and the Taliban and their Afghan rivals, do not break down.
At the same time, he will have to keep a close eye on the overspill of Middle Eastern rivalries. While Iran explained its recently voiced opposition to the Afghan peace process in the context of US sanctions, its changed position is an outright rejection of intense lobbying by Pakistan’s powerful army chief of staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa.
Like Wang, the Saudi crown prince’s facilitation contributed to the establishment of the Afghan peace process. In Tehran, however, this raised fears about renewed cross-border attacks by militants allegedly working as proxies for Riyadh.
Did pressure from Saudi Arabia see Pakistan’s Khan skip Malaysian summit?
Pakistan’s last-minute pull-out from a summit of Muslim nations in Kuala Lumpur last month, reportedly at Saudi Arabia’s behest, was the last straw, apparently, because Iran changed its stance on the Afghan peace talks immediately afterwards.
Clearly, China does not want the area around Gwadar, the maritime hub of its long-desired overland route to the Arabian Sea, to become destabilised by Middle Eastern machinations.
Again, it will fall upon Wang to persuade Beijing’s partners in the Gulf to restrain their actions for the greater, common good of peace in Afghanistan.
The outcome of his efforts, successful or not, will reverberate around the region for decades. ■