A top-level Taliban delegation visiting China to assure Beijing the group would not allow Afghanistan to be used as a base for plotting against another country.
Since the US forces left Afghanistan, the Taliban has reduced the security in Afghanistan has launched a flurry of offensives, taking districts and border crossings around the country. Including areas along shared borders with China and Pakistan.
Afghan-China frontier is just 76 kilometers long and at a rugged high altitude without a road crossing, but Beijing fears Afghanistan could be used as a staging ground for Uyghur separatists in Xinjiang.
Recently nine Taliban representatives met Foreign Minister Wang Yi after an invite from the Chinese and the two sides discussed the Afghan peace process and security issues. The meeting in the Chinese city of Tianjin was widely seen as a gift from Beijing to the insurgent group. The visit, therefore, is likely to further cement the group’s recognition on the international stage at a sensitive time even as violence increases in Afghanistan.
The militants also have a political office in Qatar where peace talks are taking place and this month, they also sent representatives to Iran where they had meetings with an Afghan government delegation.
China hopes the Afghan #Taliban will put Afghanistan's national interests first, uphold commitment to peace talks, embrace the goal of peace, create a positive image and adopt an inclusive policy. pic.twitter.com/GVQKz2kTma
In response to such international recognition, Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani urged the international community to review the narrative of the willingness of the Taliban and their supporters on embracing a political solution. “In terms of scale, scope and timing, we are facing an invasion that is unprecedented in the last 30 years,” he warned in a speech on Wednesday.
In the Taliban and Chinese meetings China fears Afghanistan could be used as a staging ground for Uyghur separatists in Xinjiang, in response the Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem said those concerns were unfounded.
China promised not to interfere in Afghanistan’s affairs, but instead help to solve problems and bring peace. China also told the Taliban delegation it expected the insurgent group to play an important role in ending Afghanistan’s war and rebuilding the country, the Chinese foreign ministry said.
He also said that he hoped the Taliban would crackdown on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as it was a “direct threat to China’s national security,” according to the readout, referring to a group China says is active in the Xinjiang region in China’s far west.
Naeem added that the delegation, led by Taliban negotiator and deputy leader Mullah Baradar, was also meeting China’s special envoy for Afghanistan.
“These are not the Taliban of the 20th century… but the manifestation of the nexus between transnational terrorist networks and transnational criminal organizations.” Analysts say China, whose stated foreign policy position is non-interference in other countries’ issues, is uneasy about the religiosity of the Taliban given their proximity to the Xinjiang province.
Wang Yi pointed out, the Afghan Taliban is a crucial military and political force in Afghanistan, although China has a non-interference policy in Afghanistan’s internal affairs, Afghanistan belongs to the Afghan people, he said, in stark contrast to the “failure of US policy towards Afghanistan”.
“Afghan people have an important opportunity to stabilize and develop their own country.”
Communist Party leaders in Beijing and the Taliban have little ideological common ground, but experts feel shared pragmatism could see mutual self-interest trump sensitive differences.
For Beijing, a stable and cooperative administration in Kabul would pave the way for an expansion of its Belt and Road Initiative into Afghanistan and through the Central Asian republics.
The Taliban, meanwhile, would consider China a crucial source of investment and economic support.“By getting the Chinese on their side, the Chinese would be able to provide them with diplomatic cover at the Security Council,” Australia-based Afghanistan expert Nishank Motwani said.
“It is important to note… when other countries open up their doors and engage with the Taliban it undercuts the legitimacy of the Afghan government and presents the Taliban almost as a government in waiting.
