China May Take Winning Role In Afghanistan After NATO Forces Withdraw

[Ryan Ruck]

Eying Rich Pickings, China May Take Winning Role In Afghanistan After NATO Forces Withdraw

January 26, 2013

EDITOR'S NOTE — This story is part of "China's Reach," a project tracking China's influence on its trading partners over three decades and exploring how that is changing business, politics and daily life. Keep up with AP's reporting on China's Reach, and join the conversation about it, using the hashtag #APChinaReach on Twitter.


China, long a bystander to the conflict in Afghanistan, is stepping up its involvement as U.S.-led forces prepare to withdraw, attracted by the country's vast mineral resources but concerned that any post-2014 chaos could embolden Islamist insurgents in its own territory.

Cheered on by the U.S. and other Western governments, which see Asia's giant as a potentially stabilizing force, China could prove the ultimate winner in Afghanistan — having shed no blood and not much aid.

Security — or the lack of it — remains the key challenge: Chinese enterprises have already bagged three multibillion dollar investment projects, but they won't be able to go forward unless conditions get safer. While the Chinese do not appear ready to rush into any vacuum left by the withdrawal of foreign troops, a definite shift toward a more hands-on approach to Afghanistan is under way.

Beijing signed a strategic partnership last summer with the war-torn country. This was followed in September with a trip to Kabul by its top security official, the first by a leading Chinese government figure in 46 years, and the announcement that China would train 300 Afghan police officers. China is also showing signs of willingness to help negotiate a peace agreement as NATO prepares to pull out in two years.

It's a new role for China, as its growing economic might gives it a bigger stake in global affairs. Success, though far from guaranteed, could mean a big payoff for a country hungry for resources to sustain its economic growth and eager to maintain stability in Xinjiang.

"If you are able to see a more or less stable situation in Afghanistan, if it becomes another relatively normal Central Asian state, China will be the natural beneficiary," says Andrew Small, a China expert at The German Marshall Fund of the United States, an American research institute. "If you look across Central Asia, that is what has already happened. ... China is the only actor who can foot the level of investment needed in Afghanistan to make it succeed and stick it out."

Over the past decade, China's trade has boomed with Afghanistan's resource-rich neighbors in Central Asia. For Turkmenistan, China trade reached 21 percent of GDP in 2011, up from 1 percent five years earlier, according to an Associated Press analysis of International Monetary Fund data. The equivalent figure for Tajikistan is 32 percent of GDP, versus 12 percent in 2006. China's trade with Afghanistan stood at a modest 1.3 percent of GDP in 2011.

Eyeing Afghanistan's estimated $1 trillion worth of unexploited minerals, Chinese companies have acquired rights to extract vast quantities of copper and coal and snapped up the first oil exploration concessions granted to foreigners in decades. China is also eyeing extensive deposits of lithium, uses of which range from batteries to nuclear components.

The Chinese are also showing interest in investing in hydropower, agriculture and construction. Preliminary talks have been held about a direct road link to China across the remote 76-kilometer (47-mile) border between the two countries, according to Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry.

Wang Lian, a Central Asia expert at Beijing University, notes that superpowers have historically been involved in Afghanistan because it is an Asian crossroads — and China would be no exception.

"It's unquestionable that China bears the responsibility to participate in the political and economic reconstruction of Afghanistan," he says. "A stable Afghanistan is of vital importance to (China). China can't afford to stand aside following the U.S. troop withdrawal and in the process of political transition."

A stable Afghanistan, Wang says, is vital to the security of Xinjiang, China's far west where Islamic militants are seeking independence. Some have gained sanctuary and training in Pakistan and along the Pakistan-Afghan border. Beijing fears chaos, or victory by the Taliban, would allow these groups greater leeway.

The U.S. is encouraging Beijing to boost its investment and aid in Afghanistan and backs its participation in various peace-seeking initiatives, including a Pakistan-Afghanistan-China forum that met last month for the second time.

Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai says there has been a greater sharing of intelligence between his country and China, and a joint U.S.-Chinese program to mentor junior Afghan diplomats. In one of the only cases of such cooperation in the world, the U.S. brought 15 diplomats to Washington, D.C., last month, after they had received similar training in China. Similar three-way programs are being developed in health and agriculture.

"Recently, China has taken a keener interest in the security situation and the transition process, and we are more than happy that this is increasing," Mosazai says. "It's certainly a change, a welcome change."

He adds that Beijing could play a crucial role in forging peace in Afghanistan because of its close relations to Pakistan, which has long-standing links to the Taliban, whose leadership is widely believed to operate from the country.

Davood Moradian, who heads the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies in Kabul, says the Chinese are treading carefully, realizing they lack expertise in a complex political landscape that has tripped up other great powers.

"The Chinese are ambiguous. They don't want the Taliban to return to power and are concerned about a vacuum after 2014 that the Taliban could fill, but they also don't like having U.S. troops in their neighborhood," he says.

Should the Chinese step into the peace process, either as a principal intermediary or through Pakistan, they could carry considerable weight.

"They are rare among the actors in Afghanistan in that they are not seen as having been too close to any side of the conflict. All sides are happy to see China's expanded role," Small says.

Though China doesn't want a Taliban takeover, Beijing regards the group as a "legitimate political force," says Small. Beijing was on its way to recognizing the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks that led to the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

The Afghan government has backed off from earlier criticism that the Chinese were not contributing their share to security and reconstruction of the country.

"There was an attitude that the Chinese were just interested in profiting from other people's loss, the blood and sweat of American and other troops," says Moradian. "But that is changing."

[vector7]

As Obama gives $36 Billion USD of Military Hardware to the CSTO/SCO assisting them in this endeavor.

[vector7]

Who Won the Iraq War? China

But the spoils of victory aren't going to last.
Matt Schiavenza Mar 22 2013, 2:40 PM ET

A Chinese construction worker looks on as locals cross a construction site near Luanda, Angola (Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters)

On March 20th, 2003, one day after the United States and a "Coalition of the Willing" began its military assault of Iraq, China's Foreign Ministry released a statement condemning the war. "The Chinese government appeals to the relevant countries to stop military actions and return to the right path of seeking a political solution to the Iraq question." Four years later, as a vicious anti-occupation insurgency in Iraq erupted into a full-blown civil war, China again expressed its displeasure with the operation, blasting the U.S. for "flagrant abuses of human rights" and "violation of sovereignty" in the country.


And yet, despite these (and many similar) statements, it's worth pointing out that one of the grim ironies of the Iraq War was this: no country, with the possible exception of Iran, benefited more from it than China.


Before we begin, it's worth acknowledging that there's something more than a little gauche about declaring a "winner" in the Iraq War, which, as our James Fallows writes, surely ranks as one of the greatest strategic blunders in American history. For the United States, the Iraq War led to the death of almost 4,500 soldiers and injury of 30,000 others, cost over $1 trillion, and failed to establish a thriving, capitalist democracy in the country. For the Iraqi people, the costs have been far higher: over 100,000 civilians lost their lives during the conflict, and over 2 million others sought refuge in other countries.


Put simply, then, China won the battle by choosing not to fight it. But this isn't quite the whole story. In addition to avoiding the grave costs of the war, China capitalized by offering developing countries an attractive alternative to the United States: ideologically-blind economic engagement. And, as a result, Beijing was able to expand its "soft power" at the expense of an increasingly unpopular Washington.

The Iraq War wasn't just a discrete battle to remove a unique threat in the Middle East, though this has often been the ex post facto justification for it. It was instead the signature element of a Bush Administration attempt to "end tyranny in this world" through an aggressive promotion of democracy -- and market-friendly, pro-Western policies. Washington combined this rhetoric with sanctions against unfriendly regimes, deus ex machina-style involvement in the Gaza elections, and continued support for despots who happened to align with its interests.

For China, America's Iraq adventure coincided with its own embellished foreign policy. After Deng Xiaoping assumed power in 1978, China practiced a modest form of foreign policy, eager to keep a low profile while focusing on development. This worked well -- almost too well. Hungry for natural resources to fuel its breakneck economic growth, Beijing for the first time in decades began to operate in areas far from its periphery, including Africa and South America. Robert Mugabe may have torpedoed Zimbabwe's economy, but Beijing still had use for his copper. Burma's generals may have bankrupted and isolated their country, but China was happy to purchase its timber. Regimes that came under U.S. sanction didn't scare Beijing; after all, China was once subject to American sanctions itself.

To the world, China represented a new kind of country -- one that was both economically powerful and middle-income at the same time. And the approach worked -- a BBC poll in 2012 reported that, across several countries, China remains more popular than the United States.

But will this last? There are already signs that China's unquenchable desire for raw materials is beginning to backfire. First, demonstrators in Burma successfully lobbied the new civilian government to stop construction of a Chinese-funded dam, citing suspicions that the dam project would benefit China more than Burma itself. In Zambia, where China has invested greatly in copper mines, workers have complained of harsh working conditions and corruption. China has consistently claimed that its engagements with other developing countries are mutually beneficial, but a growing number of people around the world are not as sure.

Meanwhile, the U.S. elected President Obama and dialed down its foreign policy, ending the war in Iraq and re-branding the war on terror to a single war against al Qaeda, depriving China of its foil. Washington won't stop interacting with the rest of the world -- no present-day American president could credibly be an isolationist -- but it's clear that the swashbuckling Bush-era days, when the government was drunk with democracy promotion, are over. Obama's foreign policy, if imperfect, is nonetheless sober -- and as a result Beijing's own activity now faces heightened scrutiny.

In a recent editorial in the New York Times, George Washington University scholar David Shambaugh argues that China needs to change its behavior in order to improve its reputation. But that's likely not going to help -- like the proverbial bull in a china shop, Beijing has simply grown too large to avoid tangling with the rest of the world. And so long as China continues to grow, it will necessarily face resistance. Such is the nature of hegemony-- as the United States well knows.

[Ryan Ruck]

Chinese Troops Appear To Be Operating In Afghanistan, And The Pentagon Is OK With It

March 5, 2017

There is mounting evidence that Chinese ground troops are operating inside Afghanistan, conducting joint counter-terror patrols with Afghan forces along a 50-mile stretch of their shared border and fueling speculation that Beijing is preparing to play a significantly greater role in the country's security once the U.S. and NATO leave.

The full scope of China's involvement remains unclear, and the Pentagon is unwilling to discuss it. “We know that they are there, that they are present,” a Pentagon spokesman said. Yet beyond a subtle acknowledgement, U.S. military officials in Washington and in Kabul would not respond to several detailed questions submitted by Military Times.

This dynamic stands in stark contrast to the two sides' feisty rhetoric over their ongoing dispute in the South China Sea, and to Washington's vocal condemnation of Russian and Iranian activity in Afghanistan. One explanation may be that this quiet arrangement is mutually beneficial.



Both the Chinese and Afghan governments have disputed reports of joint patrols inside Afghanistan. Those first surfaced late last year when India's Wion News published photos claiming to show Chinese military vehicles in a region called Little Pamir, a barren plateau near the border. Reuters, an international news agency, also recently documented the development.

The vehicles were identified as a Dongfeng EQ 2050, which is the Chinese equivalent of a U.S. Humvee, and a Norinco VP 11a, which are like the mine-resistant MRAPs developed by the U.S. military last decade. China maintains that while its police forces do conduct joint counter-terrorism operations along the border, based on existing bilateral agreements between the two nations, the People's Liberation Army does not.

But then there's this peculiarity: In January, Chinese media circulated a report about Chinese troops allegedly rescuing a U.S. special forces team that had been attacked in Afghanistan. The story is likely bogus propaganda, and U.S. officials in Afghanistan say no U.S. personnel have been part of any operations involving Chinese forces, but it would seem to underscore the two countries' shared interest in combating terrorism there.


In this screen grab from India's Wion News, a Chinese Norinco VP 11a mine resistant vehicle patrols in the Afghanistan-China border region.

But why is China even interested in Afghanistan? There are two motivators: security and commerce.

The first, says Franz-Stefan Gady, a senior fellow at the East-West Institute, centers around China’s desire to eradicate a Uyghur militant group known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which has been active throughout the region for many years. Its feud with the Chinese government dates to 1949. The U.S. State Department designated it a terrorist organization in 2002. More recently, Uyghurs fighting with the Islamic State in Iraq have vowed to wreak havoc back home in China.

The U.S. military is not expressly targeting China's adversary though its continued presence in Afghanistan does further China's objective by helping to secure the country and deny sanctuary to rogue terror groups. Today, there are about 15,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, down from nearly 130,000 during the war's peak. They're spread across a handful of bases, focused on teaching the Afghans how to fight their enemies independently. A separate U.S-led counter-terror mission is focused on taking out high-profile leaders within al-Qaida and its affiliates.

But as coalition forces have pulled back, security has eroded, leaving ripe conditions for militants — be it the Taliban, al-Qaida or Uyghurs — to move in. The top American commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. John Nicholson, last month called the 15-year war a stalemate, raising the possibility that the U.S. and its allies could once more expand their footprint. Long term, however, the goal is to extract. "Beijing," Gady said, "has expressed repeated concern over the diminished Western foot print in Afghanistan.”

Border security and broader stability are of prime concern to China, said Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of U.S.-East Asia relations at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. So its “law enforcement actions inside Afghanistan in cooperation with Pakistan, as the U.S. draws down, serve Beijing's interests quite well.” The U.S. is dependent on this assistance, he said. "Hence, there's no compelling reason for China not to resort to military force in its unstable western neighbor.”


Chinese Gen. Li Zuocheng, left, and U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley review an honor guard at the Bayi Building in Beijing, Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2016.

It's a unique dilemma for Washington. On the one hand, China's assistance in war-torn Afghanistan is seen as helpful. All the saber rattling in the South China Sea — to include China's militarization of several man-made islands — is not.

So the U.S. appears willing to cooperate where it can, and confront where it must. "A stable Afghanistan is in the interest of both the United States and China," Gady said. "I assume there must be a tacit understanding that China's involvement in Afghanistan is welcome up to a point."

China's financial interests revolve around Afghanistan’s abundance of natural resources and minerals, and its access to Central Asian markets. Beijing sees Afghanistan as a vital link for its “One Belt, One Road” initiative, an economic policy that seeks to connect Eurasia to China.

"China," Gady said, "has been seen as a 'free rider' — gaining economic benefits by exploiting the country’s natural resources while not contributing to the political and military solution of the conflict. So it is not surprising that as Western engagement in the country diminishes, China gradually steps in to fill the void to secure its interests."

In 2015, after the Taliban reclaimed Kunduz, a strategic city in northern Afghanistan, Beijing agreed to cooperate with Kabul. It pledged $73 million to support Afghanistan fledgling security forces. Afghan border police also are being trained in China, and the Chinese government is providing military hardware, including bullet proof jackets, demining equipment and armored police vehicles.

Lee does not view this as a softening stance between Beijing and Washington. There are too many other disagreements, he noted. Beyond the South China Sea, the U.S. wants China to do more to keep North Korea in check and to lay off South Korea, which intends to deploy a self-defense anti-ballistic missile system.

And the notion of Chinese forces pushing deeper into Afghanistan, beyond the border region, strikes Gady as unlikely — at least in the near term, while the U.S. and its allies are there in significant numbers. "China's security footprint," he said, "will remain small and insignificant in comparison."