The Taliban is back! Twenty years of war, untold human suffering, and more than two trillion dollars spent by the US and allies have had little to no impact in fundamentally changing the reality on the ground in Afghanistan. The Taliban is a military and political force to be reckoned with; all the immediate stakeholders in this issue are quickly coming to terms with this fact, not least among them being China and Iran, for which the resurgence of the Taliban creates serious security and (geo)economic concerns. In the case of Iran, it also further complicates the Afghan refugee issue. China has already shown a reluctant embrace of Taliban. So has Iran.
China’s security concern is that an Afghanistan under the Taliban could become a safe haven for armed Uygur separatist fighters. These security concerns also spill over to the (geo)economic domain; more chaos in Afghanistan can affect the security of the BRI investments (in Xinjiang, Central Asia, West Asia, and Pakistan). The recent meeting between Chinese officials and Taliban was high profile; Wang Yi attended the meeting. The Taliban, from a Chinese perspective, is a legitimate political force. A similar meeting happened between Iranian officials and Taliban recently. China and Iran are simultaneously working with the Kabul government, hedging their bets. Their minimal expectation is to maintain security; the optimal scenario for them would be to be indispensable in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. The Taliban already announced that ‘China is a friendly country and we welcome it for reconstruction and developing Afghanistan’.
M. Forough
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