Withdrawal of American Troops Will Mean Arrival of Chinese Investments in Afghanistan

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Lucas Leiroz, research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

The withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan may not be the end of the foreign presence in the country, but its replacement by other nations. By seeking to cooperate with the local government and expanding its strategic horizons on the Belt and Road Initiative, China can be the new country maintaining permanent position in Afghanistan – which will certainly displease Washington.

Bilateral cooperation between China and Afghanistan is increasing. According to a recent report published by The Daily Beast, Afghan government informants say officials in Kabul are seeking to build ever deeper ties with Beijing and place their country on the Belt and Road Initiative’s investment agenda. The plan is for Afghanistan to join the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), creating a trilateral route for the circulation of people, goods, and services. What has become a priority for the Afghan state is to create an extension of the CPEC that allows the country to actively participate in the investments in the corridor’s infrastructure, bringing material benefits with the construction of roads, railways, and pipelines, connecting strategic points on the route between China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. One of the first projects announced in this regard was the construction of a major highway between Kabul and the Pakistani city of Peshawar, which is expected to start immediately after the withdrawal of American troops. The construction will be financed by China, which will make Afghanistan’s membership of the CPEC official.

However, the construction of the Peshawar highway is not Afghanistan’s only way of joining the CPEC. Several maneuvers have already been carried out to increase Sino-Afghan cooperation. For example, an airport is being built in Taxkorgan on the Pamirs plateau in the northwestern Uighur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan. In addition, Beijing is financing the construction of a large seaport in Gwadar, in the province of Balochistan, Pakistan, also on the border with Afghanistan. This shows that trilateral border integration is already a reality and that ties between these countries are only likely to increase.

Indeed, the rise in the Sino-Afghan bilateral partnership after the end of the American occupation was announced by the Chinese government itself last month, when the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, confirmed in a public statement that his country was planning to expand the CPEC and create an investment platform that would include Afghanistan. Apparently, the Americans’ departure means, for Kabul, a wave of “welcome” to the Chinese and the opportunity to develop a strategic partnership that had been desired for years by Beijing, Kabul, and Islamabad, but which was impeded by the strong military presence of China’s biggest geopolitical rival.

But many experts around the world are skeptical about the possibility of successful Chinese investments given the chaotic situation in Afghanistan. The strong institutional crisis and the advance of the Taliban generate the worst possible expectations for the near future, where civil war and widespread violence are expected to increase exponentially. A war scenario is extremely unfavorable to the progress of business and investments in infrastructure, which require a peaceful condition for their development. But apparently what these experts are ignoring is China’s mediating ability and military power.

Beijing is characterized by extreme pragmatism in foreign policy, avoiding judgment on the attitudes of governments and belligerent groups and only concerned with establishing strategic partnerships of mutual interest. The Afghan case is no different. On other occasions, China has already used its diplomatic power to mediate the dialogue between the Afghan government and the Taliban – and nothing prevents Beijing from doing it again. Also, in recent statements, the Taliban said it will not harm infrastructure works that benefit the Afghan people – there is only intolerance against foreign military troops.

In this case, it is possible that the Chinese presence, if operated exclusively in the economic sphere, will not affect the interests of the anti-government militias. Chinese international praxis is always to avoid situations involving the use of armed forces, so Beijing will certainly try to create a scenario as peaceful as possible, limiting itself, at first, to acting in the economic sphere. But Afghanistan is located close to the Chinese regional zone of international influence, being a strategic place for China to expand its military cooperation ties, considering the integration with Pakistan (which is an India’s rival, as well as China), so it is possible that in the near future Sino-Afghan bilateral relations will evolve into a military stage.

In fact, the end of the American occupation will not result in a scenario of chaotic isolationism for Afghanistan. If, on the one hand, security tends to go into crisis due to the advance of the Taliban, on the other, the country becomes more open to international cooperation with a wide range of nations. Now, we have a change of panorama, in which the American military leaves and the Chinese investments arrive. In practice, the Americans did not invest to make Afghanistan economically interesting and treated the country from a strictly military perspective – China will do precisely the opposite. This will not please Washington, which will certainly try to use its strength to stop any Chinese projects in the country.

So, it is possible that the speech in favor of the permanence of troops after the deadline grows in Washington, which will provoke the violence of the Taliban, creating a hostile scenario for the Chinese business. But this situation would be unsustainable in the long term and would have more harmful effects on the US,  than on China, which already has an economic platform in the region and is only looking to expand it further.

Source: InfoBrics