The latest plot twist in the endless historical saga of Afghanistan as a graveyard of empires has thrown up an intriguing new chapter. For the past two months, Beijing and Kabul have been discussing the possibility of setting up a military base alongside Afghanistan’s border with China.
“We are going to build it [the base] and the Chinese government has committed to help financially, provide equipment and train Afghan soldiers,” Mohammad Radmanesh, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, admitted to the AFP.
“We are going to build it [the base] and the Chinese government has committed to help the division financially, provide equipment and train the Afghan soldiers,” he added.
On the record, the Chinese Foreign Ministry only admitted that Beijing was involved in “capacity-building” in Afghanistan, while NATO’s Resolute Support Mission, led by the United States, basically issued a “no comment.”
The military base will eventually be built in the mountainous Wakhan Corridor, a narrow strip of territory in northeastern Afghanistan that extends to China and separates Tajikistan from Pakistan.
It is one of the most spectacular, barren and remote stretches of Central Asia and according to local Kyrgyz nomads, joint Afghan-Chinese patrols are already active there. True to Sydney Wignall’s fabled Spy on the Roof of the World ethos, a great deal of shadow play is in effect. Apparently, this is basically about China’s own war on terror.
Strategic priority
Beijing’s strategic priority is to prevent Uyghur fighters of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), who have been exiled in Afghanistan, crossing the Wakhan Corridor to carry out operations across Xinjiang, an autonomous territory in northwest China. There is also the fear that ISIS or Daesh jihadis from Syria and Iraq may also use Afghanistan as a springboard to reach the country.
Even though the jihad galaxy may be split, Beijing is concerned about ETIM. As early as September 2013, the capo of historic al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, supported jihad against China in Xinjiang.
Later, in July 2014, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the leader of Daesh said: “Muslim rights [should be] forcibly seized in China, India and Palestine.” Then, on March 1, 2017, Daesh released a video announcing its presence in Afghanistan, with the terror group’s Uyghur jihadis vowing, on the record, to “shed blood like rivers” in Xinjiang.
At the heart of the matter is China’s Belt and Road Initiative, or the New Silk Road, which will connect China with Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
For Beijing, the stability of one of its links, the $57 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is seriously compromised if terror threats abound in Central and South Asia. It could also affect China’s sizable investments in Afghanistan’s mineral mining industry.
The Chinese and Russian strategies are similar. After all, they have been discussed at every meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which Afghanistan is an observer and future full member. For the Russia-China partnership, the future of a peaceful Afghanistan must be decided in Asia, by Asians, and at the SCO.
In December, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told diplomats from fellow BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) member India that Moscow favors talking to the Taliban. He said this was the only way to reduce the risk of terror operations emanating from Afghanistan to Central Asia.
The question is which Taliban to talk to. There are roughly two main factions. The moderates favor a peace process and are against jihadism, while the radicals, who have been fighting the US and NATO-supported government in Kabul.
Moscow’s strategy is pragmatic. Russia, Iran, India, Afghanistan and the Central Asian “stans” have reportedly held meetings to map out possible solutions. China, meanwhile, remains an active member of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) promoting a peace deal and reconciliation process which will include the Kabul and the Taliban.
Beijing’s multi-pronged strategy is now clear. Ultimately, Afghanistan must become integrated with CPEC. In parallel, Beijing is counting on using its “special relationship” with Pakistan to maneuver the Taliban into a sustainable peace process.
The appointment of Liu Jinsong as the new Chinese ambassador to Kabul is significant. Liu was raised in Xinjiang and was a director of the Belt and Road Initiative’s $15 billion Silk Road Fund from 2012 to 2015. He knows the intricacies of the region.
Six projects
Even before Liu’s arrival, the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, had announced that Beijing and Islamabad would extend CPEC to Kabul with six projects selected as priorities. They included a revamped Peshawar-Kabul highway and a trans-Afghan highway linking Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Of course, that would neatly fall into place with a possible Chinese military base in Gwadar port in Pakistan, the Arabian Sea terminal of CPEC, and one in the Wakhan corridor.
Now, compare the Russia-China approach with Washington’s strategy. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy involves defeating the Taliban on the ground before forcing them to negotiate with Kabul. With the Taliban able to control key areas of Afghan territory, the Trump administration has opted for a mini-surge.
That may be as “successful” as President Obama’s much-touted 2009 surge. The US government has never made public any projection for the total cost of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
But according to the Dec. 8, 2014 version of a Congressional Research Service document – the latest to be made public – it had spent up until then, $1.6 trillion on the invasion and military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Which brings us to the question: Why does the US remain in Afghanistan?
After more than a trillion dollars lost and nothing really to show for it, no wonder all eyes are now on Beijing to see if China can come up with a ‘win-win’ situation.
Pepe Escobar,
Your article is fine if read strictly within context. But it could be easily taken out of context. It might give the impression to some that China is afraid of Muslim insurgents in that sense that China has a big problem with Islam.
That is not so! China has a problem with the Uyghurs in Sinkiang, who happen to be Muslim. Some of China’s most famous heros, including Admiral Cheng Ho, were Muslims. There are Muslims of other ethnic background in China who are not at tenterhooks with the Chinese Government, especially the Hui ethnic group. Now with ID cards and face recognition technology, it is very difficult for Uyghurs who fought with ISIS to return to China.
But it would be better if China has a border post in the Wakhan Corridor, as that is a possible entry point. But you cannot have a border post if Afghanistan does not share the border post! For the normal set up is having a no-man’s land in between the neighbouring countries respective posts at either ends of the no-man’s stretch. Afghanistan cannot affird it nor does it have the manpower. That is why China is offering to fund the border set up.
And you have not clearly noted that China is on the best of terms with both Pakistan and Afghanistan, both Muslim nations.
So, the problem is not of a China being in anyway anti-Muslim, for China is a secular country, where religion is only allowed as a private personal spiritual pursuit and devotion.
The problem is simply that the Uyghurs want self-independence. And China is saying no!
You know the reason why? China is like the whole of Europe as one country or if you can imagine the United States as a one country of strictly all the First Nation Native tribes. If you give independence to one tribe, what about the other 300 odd tribes? Until 1956, when the Government invented a national language based on the different dialects around Beijing, the Chinese tribes could not understand each other verbally but did so through the common brush stroke hieroglyphics writing!
If Lincoln went to war to save the Union, what is wrong for China to do the same in fighting Uyghur insurgency? Would the U.S allow Hawaii to declare independence or the Eskimos in Alaska? Or the Mexicans in New Mexico?
One of the great aspects of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is that America is not included. That is especially important today since America is fully under Jewish control.
Another aspect of the SCO is that it aligns Russia and China and it is headquartered in Shanghai.
As for Afghanistan the designes by America and China cannot be more different. As I see it America’s plan for Afghanistan falls under Oded Yinon’s plan for a "Greater Israel" which demands destabilizing nations east of Israel all the way to Pakistan. This plan works in favor of Israel and America.
China’s design on Afghanistan includes this quote "Beijing and Islamabad would extend CPEC to Kabul with six projects selected as priorities" which works in favor of Afghanistan, China and Asia
The BRI is a rolling stone and China’s awareness that its objectives cannon be attained in a twilight is crystal, the Chinese always put their money where their mouth is.
CPEC is a Chinese signature project to consolidate the grand strategy of the BRI and has at its core and paradigm the dissimulation and reorientation of the Pakistani State apparatchiks away from the use of terrorism as a foreign policy tool to protect their strategic depth. If China can pull off the CPEC (which it surely can) then it will further hardened Pakistan strategic autonomy, as more wealth becomes available through Chinese cooperation the Pakistani politico-economic elites will continue to look East in their realignment.
This would no doubt have a ripple effect on Pakistan’s Afghan policy, while China employ it as part of her grand bargain for access to Islamabad influence on the Taliban.
The stumbling block to this would be Washington and Delhi, but in Afghanistan if the US sneezes India catches cold. However the neoconservative have hijacked Trump Afghanistan policy and are demanding for more blood. In fact, Pentagon as recouped the remnants of ISIS and brought them to Afghanistan theater to perpetuate America’s occupation of Central Asia relatively blocking the path of the BRI.
Obviously it as become imperative for Baba Beijing that at a stage it will have to engage her hard power against the "Jihadi Johns" and soft power against Washington interest in Central Asia in the quest to bring the BRI to success. I believe the only thing that can stop China is China herself.
Too much weed as always.
xinjiang is part of china,this is a no brainer,the muslim world and the rest of asia acknowledge this fact,as for afghanistan and india..it is ime to be asians and not pretend to be the white man..as you will never be accepted as the white men of asia..the problem with asians is that you guys dont know your geography,do you really think taiwan is another non chinese state..come on..
In the second to last paragraph in the last sentence…"Why does the U.S. remain in Afghanistan"???. The answer of course is that the U.S. , a declining empire, is desperate at all costs to stop China’s rise. China expands its influence via trade and commerce while the U.S. is trying via military might and intimidation to stop China.
Was Zheng he Muslim? To be strictly accurate, I think, Zheng was of Muslim descent. His father and grandfather both visited Mecca. On one of his seven visits to the Indian Ocean he sent a mission to Mecca. He may have spoken arabic but certainly recognised Chinese gods. Fascinating man.
Robert Morcom-Harneis
Yes, China is a fascinating country in religious terms. There is estimated to be between 20 to 50 million Muslims (9 million are the Uyghurs in Xinjiang) in China! China is a secular country. So, when it comes to census, unless you are devoted and religious you will just indicate that you are an atheist, just to look good or ‘play safe’ on paper with the Government, whether you are a Buddhist, Muslim or a Christian.
Zheng was a honorific title from the Emperor. He was born Ma He. Muslims do not have surnames. So Chinese Muslims took Ma as the surname representing Mahammad. Ma means horse and Arabs were renowned in China not for their religion but by the Arabian horse!
In China if you are born a Muslim you are a Muslim, and in fact the authorities recognise that a non-Muslim has to convert to Islam to marry a Muslim. But many young Chinese Muslims unlike Uyghurs Muslims are ‘easy going’ religious wise until they get married or when they get old. And many still practise Chinese custom style and traditions to maintain comity with the general population.
Being a secular country, any religion in China is subject to it being kept low profiled and practised as a personal private devotion. Any attempt to have a religion assuming hegemony in the public arena will be put down often by force.
In the public arena, the Government is sort of ‘God’ if you know what I mean. Sort of render into Caesar what belongs to Caesar (the human in you) and render unto your God what belongs to God (if you believe in a spirit of soul).
This ‘secular’ principle of an atheist society is what the religious West or Middle East have no understanding. If you understand this, your perspective of the Chinese Government automatically changes. The other bastion of Chinese society is that the is no such thing as individual human rights. The family is the basic building block of what the Chinese defines humanity or human society.
You have to learn to see things through Chinese eyes. Once you are an atheist and secular, the world and its values automatically change right before your very eyes!
Vincent Cheok
why is US remaining in Afghanistan.. try and use your brain. then you surely crack this big mystery. as for China.. oh.. nothing is better on emptying pockets than fighting in Afghanistan. if they re eager to do that.. let them.
Vince Cheok U say western society its religious, but whats really diffrence in normal people life? how do u see this changes the normal citizens life?
Proof?
Frank Flaviu
I am saying Western or Middle Eastern or Abrahamic societies are religious in a very broad sense. There are of course atheists in these societies too on the margin and also even Satan worshippers. Deep down most are still ‘religious’ in their belief that there is a God or some sort of greater being that judges what is perceived to be a sin or otherwise.
China in the public societal sense is strictly a secular and atheist humanistic society. There is no God – just humans within Mother Nature. The Three Pillars of Chinese Society – Taoism teaches the Tao or Way of Mother Nature (sort of the ‘yin and yang’ of life and ‘filial piety’ and ‘ancestral worship’) – Confucianism deals with governance and people relationship (sort of humanistic ethics and rituals) – Zen Buddhism deals with the ‘sunyata’ (emptiness or illusion) of life in Samsara (state of suffering or unsatisfactoriness of existence) and the immutable law of karma that determines whether we are karmic fated by karmic residue to never ending rebirths or reincarnation in Samsara.
So when you have no God in your life, how you behave is in the Chinese sense is how you perceive the Way of Mother Nature in the Cycle of Life, the belonging to your people and civilisation, since the ‘family unit’ is the foundation stone of society (the individual is irrelevant in the broad humanity of things) and the fear of karmic retribution or ’cause and effect’ – that you will always get your just dessert – thee is no such thing as mercy or forgiveness by a God. Karma is indiscriminant in its karmic dispensation.
Vincent Cheok
Viola Briatková
China is not going into Afghanistan militarily. The Chinese are very insular and parochial people. They want to be left to be what they are, and they want others to have the same self-esteem and dignity in being what the are.
Let the Europeans be Europeans, Africans be Africans, Indians be Indians, Middle East be Middle East, Eskimos be Eskimos.
Up to each whether the want to pray to Jehovah, Allah, the Sun, the Moon of the Stars or even not pray at all.
All neighbours are be themselves. Do not judge or proselytise or cover your neighbours. Enter each other’s house only when invited. Otherwise chat at fenceline or better still barter or trade.
China is against any war with its neighbours, let alone people who are not even immediate neighbours but over the hill and faraway!
China is not into make love not war either. You go make love with your own.
China is into strictly make trade and commerce and not war – otherwise we do not bother with each other – you do what you want to do in your house – have orgies and get high on drugs – you let me do what I want in mine – total non-interference in the others internal affairs.
In short the Chinese believe that all neighbours, including themselves are better off if everyone in the neighbourhood are well fed, have housing, have education and health facilities and all other basic necessities. When there is disparity in economic circumstances in the neighbourhood there is potential for conflict.
Vincent Cheok
I guess he is one the ETIM they are trying to hunt down.
$1.6 Trillion dollars… in what turns out to be an investment in our own graveyard. Worse still, the people who got us there are still in power.
"nothing to show for it" ??? What do you think Eisenhower’s Military Industrial Complex " fights wars for, winning? No, profit. MUCH profit to show for American agression, if you don’t debit the lives lost and ruined.
The US is in Afghanistan to make trouble for regional players and to get their hands on the valuable minerals in the mountains.
Vince Cheok In fact, Chinese believe in god, and at the sametime believe in no god. Confucian said, pay respect to god but keep a distance. There is a God, but so what? The great novel Xiyouji (or Monkey King) is a good example. Gods are great and powerful, but you can make jokes out of them.
Remeber, China is the only country so far that had converted Jews to Muslim.
Klaus Lee
I think we are speaking at different wavelengths. When the West translates from the Chinese texts they use ‘god’ with a small ‘g’ and not meaning a God in the sense of the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being. It is not the same God that we Chinese say like “老天爷” or “我滴神啊” (Old Heavenly Father, My God). The Chinese do not have Gods in the Western sense. The Chinese ‘gods’ refer to deities or preternatural beings or superhuman beings or spirits or bodhisattvas like the Eight Immortals, Monkey God or Guanyin or Tin Hau or Kwan Kung or the ‘kitchen god’ etc. To avoid confusion use the term ‘deity’. You can make jokes out of deities but not a God. In Chinese folklore humans can become deities but in the Western sense no human can become a god!
Vince Cheok