As US prepares to move out, China prepares to move in

Started by CountDeMoney, June 03, 2012, 07:04:08 AM

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CountDeMoney

QuoteAs United States and Western nations pull out, China seeks role in Afghanistan
Chinese President Hu Jintao and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai will hold talks during a global summit in Beijing this week


BEIJING — China and Afghanistan will sign an agreement in the coming days that strategically deepens their ties, Afghan officials say, the strongest signal yet that Beijing wants a role beyond economic partnership as Western forces prepare to leave the country.

China has kept a low political profile through much of the decade-long international effort to stabilise Afghanistan, choosing instead to pursue an economic agenda, including locking in future supply from Afghanistan's untapped mineral resources.

As the U.S.-led coalition winds up military engagement and hands over security to local forces, Beijing, along with regional powers, is gradually stepping up involvement in an area that remains at risk from being overrun by Islamist insurgents.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai will hold talks on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Beijing this week, where they will seal a wide-ranging pact governing their ties, including security cooperation.

Afghanistan has signed a series of strategic partnership agreements including with the United States, India and Britain among others in recent months, described by one Afghan official as taking out "insurance cover" for the period after the end of 2014 when foreign troops leave.

"The president of Afghanistan will be meeting the president of China in Beijing and what will happen is the elevation of our existing, solid relationship to a new level, to a strategic level," Janan Musazai, a spokesman for the Afghan foreign ministry, told Reuters.

"It would certainly cover a broad spectrum which includes cooperation in the security sector, a very significant involvement in the economic sector, and the cultural field."

He declined to give details about security cooperation, but Andrew Small, an expert on China at the European Marshall Fund who has tracked its ties with South Asia, said the training of security forces was one possibility.

China has signalled it will not contribute to a multilateral fund to sustain the Afghan national security forces - estimated to cost $4.1 billion per year after 2014 - but it could directly train Afghan soldiers, Small said.

"They're concerned that there is going to be a security vacuum and they're concerned about how the neighbours will behave," he said.

Beijing has been running a small progamme with Afghan law enforcement officials, focused on counter-narcotics and involving visits to China's restive Xinjiang province, whose western tip touches the Afghan border.

Training of Afghan forces is expected to be modest, and nowhere near the scale of the Western effort to bring them up to speed, or even India's role in which small groups of officers are trained at military institutions in India.

China wants to play a more active role, but it will weigh the sensitivities of neighbouring nations in a troubled corner of the world, said Zhang Li, a professor of South Asian studies at Sichuan University who has been studying the future of Sino-Afghan ties.

"I don't think that the U.S. withdrawal also means a Chinese withdrawal, but especially in security affairs in Afghanistan, China will remain low-key and cautious," he said. "China wants to play more of a role there, but each option in doing that will be assessed carefully before any steps are taken."

Afghanistan's immediate neighbours Iran and Pakistan, but also nearby India and Russia, have all jostled for influence in the country at the crossroads of Central and South Asia, and many expect the competition to heat up after 2014.

India has poured aid into Afghanistan and like China has invested in its mineral sector, committing billions of dollars to develop iron ore deposits, as well as build a steel plant and other infrastructure.

It worries about a Taliban resurgence and the threat to its own security from Pakistan-based militants operating from the region.

Pakistan, which is accused of having close ties with the Taliban, has repeatedly complained about India's expanding role in Afghanistan, seeing Indian moves as a plot to encircle it.

"India-Pakistan proxy fighting is one of the main worries," said Small.

In February, China hosted a trilateral dialogue involving officials from Pakistan and Afghanistan to discuss efforts to seek reconciliation with the Taliban.

It was first time Beijing involved itself directly and openly in efforts to stabilise Afghanistan.

Afghan foreign ministry spokesman Musazai said Kabul supported any effort to bring peace in the country. "China has close ties with Afghanistan. It also has very close ties with Pakistan and if it can help advance the vision of peace and stability in Afghanistan we welcome it."


I wonder how Chinese combined arms doctrine will be able to handle the Taliban when it comes back hardcore in a few years.  When was the last time they mixed it up with anybody other than students and monks, anyhow?  The Vietnamese in '79?

jimmy olsen

Was just going to post this.

By all means I hope the Chinese get involved in Afghanistan as possible.
It is far better for the truth to tear my flesh to pieces, then for my soul to wander through darkness in eternal damnation.

Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What's Julia like?
Faye: Ordinary. The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can't leave alone.
Jet: I see.
Faye: Like an angel from the underworld. Or a devil from Paradise.
--------------------------------------------
1 Karma Chameleon point

Razgovory

Good.  They can have it.  Maybe they can annex and colonize it.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Kleves

It's probably easier when you don't care about setting up a democratic government or avoiding slaughtering civilians.
My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Razgovory

Quote from: Kleves on June 03, 2012, 08:11:17 AM
It's probably easier when you don't care about setting up a democratic government or avoiding slaughtering civilians.

Didn't make it easier for the Soviets.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Kleves

Quote from: Razgovory on June 03, 2012, 08:33:41 AM
Didn't make it easier for the Soviets.
Sure, but somehow I doubt we will start arming the Islamists again.
My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Monoriu

China doesn't want to move in.  It wants to prevent Islamists from using Afganistan as a base for the Xinjiang independence movement. 

Neil

Quote from: Monoriu on June 03, 2012, 09:54:09 AM
China doesn't want to move in.  It wants to prevent Islamists from using Afganistan as a base for the Xinjiang independence movement.
And to do that, it has no choice but to move in.
I do not hate you, nor do I love you, but you are made out of atoms which I can use for something else.

Razgovory

Quote from: Kleves on June 03, 2012, 09:44:20 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 03, 2012, 08:33:41 AM
Didn't make it easier for the Soviets.
Sure, but somehow I doubt we will start arming the Islamists again.

But Pakistan will.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Iormlund

Quote from: Razgovory on June 03, 2012, 10:04:04 AM
Quote from: Kleves on June 03, 2012, 09:44:20 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 03, 2012, 08:33:41 AM
Didn't make it easier for the Soviets.
Sure, but somehow I doubt we will start arming the Islamists again.

But Pakistan will.

With the weapons you give them :lol:

Razgovory

I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

CountDeMoney


Jaron

Winner of THE grumbler point.


Eddie Teach

To sleep, perchance to dream. But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?