China Eyes Kabul Role

By virtue of formally including Afghanistan as an observer member state in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) during the recently concluded 12th meeting of the SCO, held in Beijing in June 2012, China appears to be ensuring its stake in the future political landscape in Afghanistan. Until now, Chinese policy approach towards Afghanistan has remained low-key and cautious. Beijing has sought to, and to a large extent, managed to, secure substantial economic gains primarily at the expense of the security cover provided by the ISAF/NATO forces.

As opposed to the ISAF and NATO forces, China assumed a minimalistic role in the security sector, refusing to get involved in direct military operations in Afghanistan. Given China's rejection towards contributing troops or monetarily assisting military operations in Afghanistan, there has been considerable disappointment and resentment in that Beijing has gotten hold of lucrative investment deals at thecost of the security cover provided by the ISAF. More recently, Beijing has also refused to contribute to the multilateral fund of $4.1 billion required for sustaining the Afghan Army after 2014. The fact that China refuses to assume a major developmental role is also reflected from the fact that it has allocated a meek grant of $23 million for projects that remain unspecified.

However, come 2014, as most US and NATO troops prepare to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan, therole of regional powers in securing stability in war-torn Afghanistan has come to the forefront of discussions, even though it is amply clear that the SCO does not envisage playing a similar role as the NATO since it is a regional grouping and not a military bloc. The six-member SCO includes China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with most of these nations sharing their borders with Afghanistan.

This brings to focus China's prime concern vis-à-vis maintaining internal security and crackdown against separatism and extremism in its Muslim-majority and far-western Xinjiang province. The Taliban militancy, Islamic terrorist organisations and remnants of the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, pose a serious challenge to Xinjiang's stability — often dubbed as China's "bridgehead" to the West. Xinjiang shares a 5,743 km boundary with eight countries including Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. China realises that the threat of militant and terrorist groups operating inthe Central Asian Republics will impact upon the future stability in the restive Xinjiang province.

In this reference, Beijing wants to make certain that no Islamic separatist group in Xinjiang (whose western tip touches the Afghan border) receives any benefit or support from radical/terror groups, post the US-led withdrawal in 2014. This could be interpreted as the primary factor behind China's decision to host a trilateral dialogue in February involving officials from Pakistan and Afghanistan, signalling that Beijing has been guardedly concerned about the security of its border regions. Beijing has offered to train only a select number of Afghan law enforcement officials by focusing exclusively on counter-narcotics and anti-terrorism techniques, including visits to the Xinjiang province.

Although Chinese President Hu Jintao has stated, "We will continue to manage regional affairs by ourselves ... and play a bigger role in Afghanistan's peaceful reconstruction," the fact remains that even though Beijing seeks greater economic ties with Kabul, the former is circumspect as far as expanding engagement in the non-economic sectors is concerned. In the backdrop of the current realities, China is expected to play a more concrete role that transcends a mere economic agenda.

Pertinent to state that Beijing's growing appetite for energy and natural resources goads it into pursuing an economic outline in mineral-rich Afghanistan. Apart from the mining projects already in place, Beijing has entered into an oil and gas deal with Kabul in December 2011. Signed by the China National Petroleum Company to explore oil and natural gas in the Amu Darya River Basin, the deal would also bring up Afghanistan's first oil refinery by 2015.

Gauging the politico-security uncertainties of post-2014 Afghanistan makes it clear that political and national reconciliation through peaceful negotiations can come about with adequate support and coordination of regional players. Whether could this be interpreted as building contours of a new kind of regionalism, can only be ascertained in the coming future.

Dr. Monika Chansoria presently is a Visiting Scholar at the Cooperative Monitoring Center, Sandia National Laboratories, USA, and also a Senior Fellow at CLAWS,New Delhi.

 Courtesy: TheSunday Guardian, 1 July 2012

 http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/china-eyes-kabul-role