China Mulls Deploying Troops to Afghanistan After U.S. Pullout
Afghanistan is strategic to China’s economic and military expansion in the Middle East, Eurasia.
China is considering sending troops to Afghanistan after the planned U.S. military withdrawal in coming month. “China may send peacekeeping force to Afghanistan after US troops leave,” the Hong Kong daily South China Morning Post reported Friday, citing senior Chinese national security experts.
The report comes after this week’s announcement by President Joe Biden to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. According to the plan, 2,500 U.S. servicemen and a further 7,000 allied NATO troops will leave the country by September 11, 2021.
Following the Biden White House announcement, China raised the alarm about the security situation in the Taliban-ridden country close to its western borders. On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian warned that “terrorist forces” may take over Afghanistan once the U.S. pulls out.
Afghanistan is strategic to China’s economic and military expansion in Eurasia and the Middle East, also known as the Belt and Road Initiative.
China’s pretense that it is worried about the rising Islamism in the region is hypocritical at best. Beijing is supporting two of the worst terror-sponsoring regimes in its backyard: Iran and Pakistan. China is building a military and naval presence in neighboring Pakistan and has just recently signed 25-year military-economic pact with Iran.
The South China Morning Post reported:
Beijing may consider sending a peacekeeping force to Afghanistan if the security situation in the South Asian country poses a threat to the neighbouring Chinese province of Xinjiang after American troops pull out, analysts said. (…)
In 2018, China trained Afghan troops and helped set up a mountain brigade.
The training took place in China and the aim of the brigade was to counter possible attacks by al-Qaeda and Islamic State. “The security forces of the Afghan government are not capable of ensuring Afghan security,” said Sun Qi, an international relations specialist at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
“The situation in Afghanistan might go further into chaos in the future. Cross-border crime, drug trafficking and smuggling of firearms may proliferate,” he said. (…)
“If the security situation poses a significant threat, China may send peacekeeping troops along with humanitarian assistance to the region under the terms of the Charter of the United Nations to ensure the safety and interests of Chinese people and companies there,” he said.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Thursday that foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan should withdraw in a “responsible and orderly manner” to prevent terrorist forces from taking advantage of the chaos.
China has long cultivated Pakistan as a military and geostrategic ally. China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is getting a naval base in Gwadar, Pakistan. The Arabian Sea port, combined with the 700 mile China-owned corridor running through Pakistan, extends China’s military reach to the Middle East.
Last month, China signed a $400 billion economic and military pact with Iran, reportedly giving it access to Iranian military, air and naval bases.
With President Biden in the White House, China is projecting its economic and military strength in the Middle East. During last month’s trip to the Middle East, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi promised to protect Arab countries from U.S. “interference.”
The Chinese foreign minister launched the Middle East “Security and Stability Initiative,” pledging to create a “framework for collective, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security in the Middle East” under its stewardship. Such geostrategic moves are bound to increase China military clout in the jihad-ridden and oil-rich region.
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If China chooses to secure its border from potential incursion by various Afghan groups I don’t have a problem with that.
Give somebody else a turn at world police.
The ChiComs might find they should be careful what they wish for! 🇦🇫🇨🇳😬
The Afghani people are smart, resourceful, tough as nails, and have yet to be taken over by their “betters”.
Maybe they can conquer China.
They can’t even conquer theirselves. Just because no one wishes to stay in the backward hellhole known as Afghanistan doesn’t make them capable of much more than continuing to be killed.
China and Afghanistan deserve each other.
China, welcome to the worlds meatgrinders, Afghanistan and the Middle East. Let’s see how their well-honed diplomatic skills work out in these places.
I don’t think they will have a problem. For millenia it has been known how to eliminate an insurrection. Western people are unwilling to do it. China won’t have a problem.
What you need to realize is China is not the diaper wearing, woke first military of the US. China will accept zero opposition in Afghanistan. With their recent $400B deal with Iran, this Afghanistan occupation will clear access overland to Iran and vice versa. There are only a couple craphole ‘stans in the way, so basically nothing. Afganistan will soon be the same as their Xinjiang province. All muslims locked up. Win Win!
With Joe and Kamalhair ‘dissing the Japanese PM multiple times yesterday, that is just another signal to China from Joe that we aren’t interested in the region at all. Welcome to the new world of China. Miss Trump yet?
The Soviet Union wasn’t “the diaper wearing, woke first military of the US”, either. And it got chewed up in Afghanistan.
The Forever War, Part III
“Welcome to the party, pal!”
The Afghan/Chinese border is just as porous as the Mexican/US border during the Obama years. Because of that there are a lot of Chinese restaurants and whore houses in the major cities. Lots of guns and ammo made it across the Chinese border the past 20 years.
Let ’em
China would be mad to put troops in Afghanistan.
It doesn’t matter how ruthless they are, it would be a quagmire.
Sounds great. Can’t wait to hear Beijing Biden and Camel Toe explain this away. China is thinking and acting strategically. Gobbling up vital natural resources with poor countries via the Belt and Road initiative while Creepy Joe and the dirty ho are advancing their Marxist, slow but steady transitioning of our country into a third world utopia. All these clowns that are salivating at the “Green New Deal” have no clue as to what these “Green” initiatives will do to our country and economy. The Chinese are cornering or have cornered the access to and rights to the very precious metals that are needed for basically all the green technology the AOC’s of the world think we should be using. What could possibly go wrong.
The Communist Chinese have a weapon no other nation in history ever had: a population of 1.6 billion people. A war of attrition is right up their alley.
Yep. Think they will be opposed to wiping out the Afghani population and resettling? I don’t. The western world has shown it won’t stop them.
The Soviets were just as ruthless as the chinese. They are no longer in Afghanistan.
Beg to differ. True, Russians are capable of being ruthless. However, the Chinese culture is enough different from Western culture that the Chinese could run a workshop on ruthlessness for the Russians. Also, Islam is a splintered world. Those in charge in Iran won’t care about Muslims being abused by China.
Communists, western or eastern are all ruthless killers. The Chinese have nothing on the Russian gulag, the Russian torture basements.
The Russians intended to maim in Afghanistan, not kill, as it required resources to take care of the seriously injured.
I’m sorry, but suggesting the Chinese culture is capable of greater atrocity than the Russians is just ignorance. Given the disparity in population between China and the Soviet Union, and the fact that an approximately equal number (50 million or so each) have been murdered, one might suggest the Russians were a bit ahead of the communist Chinese.
The Chicoms are a totally different animal my friend. Even the Russians hesitated to exterminate whole areas of Afghanistan because of world opinion. The Chicoms on the other hand don’t give a rats ass about world opinion. And they will not hesitate to do so either. If the Chicoms move into Afghanistan it’ll be all over. for the Grand Jihad.
Chinese Blood for Lithium
Afghanistan. Who first said “Afghanistan is a hole on the where there isn’t a country”?
Afghanistan is just another shit hole.
“…on the map….”
A hole on the map where there isn’t a country.
This makes perfect sense. China forms an alliance with Pakistan to occupy Afghanistan, and apply additional pressure to India. It helps prevent the spread of Islamism into China. The latter being the reason for the genocide of the Uyghurs
The Chinese army gets some serious battle experience using modern tactics.
The Chinese and Pakistani are far more ruthless than 1970s era Soviets.
Lots of money for them in taking over the opium trade to the West.
With the Biden administration and an increasingly feckless NATO this would be a strategically brilliant move.
The one complication, how to do it without waking the western news media from its slumber.
Not a bad analysis, except for the “using modern tactics” part. Modern tactics don’t work well in Afghanistan. You have to turn to very ancient tactics, indeed.
India will be pissed.
Let us hope so.
.