PGC – As the United States leave Afghanitan and a trail of broken alliances behind her, the Chinese under Chairman Xi have chosen to side with the Taliban in the war for the hearts and minds of the people. The same nation-state that is regularly feted in American corporate markets, the same nation-state that has more infliuence over America’s media than the American people do, is busy cozying up with the Taliban in a bid to cull from the Afghan mountains what gold they imagine they can if the Taliban welcomed their presence.
Perhaps the coal is the geo-political circumstance of Afghanistan itself, a bridge between what is commonly referred to as the Near East and the Far East. But Afghanistan is a bridge ridged with mountains and difficult terrain, a land not easily tamed if the people of the land don’t will it. America is not the first Empire to die in those mountains, and she won’t be the last.
So China is figuring on trying a different strategy, make nice with the might that is, a strategy America herself has deployed in the past as well. It’s a dangerous gambit but fitting with China’s overal strategy of consolidating world power, gain power through influence where the soul eats and sleep, commerce. If China can help the Taliban exploit the lands for capital for the cause, while getting the kind of cut China will hope to get, this can be a very productive relationship, not just economically, but geopolitically as well. Still, it’s a dangerous game the Chinese play and it remains to be seen if they have the discipline to be a velvet glove master of a land of iron wills.
A Reluctant Embrace: China’s New Relationship with the Taliban
From warontherocks.com
2021-08-10 03:55:04
Yun Sun
Excerpt:
As the United States withdraws from Afghanistan and leaves a security vacuum there, is China moving in by cozying up to the Taliban? On July 28, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a high-profile official meeting with a delegation of nine Afghan Taliban representatives, including the group’s co-founder and deputy leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. This was not the first visit by Taliban members to China, but the meeting was unprecedented in its publicity, the…
