Who’s Going to Win in Afghanistan? China.
According to a recent CRS report, China’s influence in Afghanistan is steadily increasing. Whether or not that turns out to be a good thing for the United States depends on whether Washington follows through on its recently-reaffirmed commitment to maintain a strategic partnership with Afghanistan post-2011.
The extent of China’s economic engagement in Afghanistan is by now well known. Since 2002, China has pledged nearly $1 billion in aid to Afghanistan (though only a fraction of it has been disbursed, and it remains modest sum compared to the U.S., UK, Japanese, and Canadian contributions). In 2008, a state-owned Chinese firm provided the largest single foreign direct investment in Afghanistan, dropping $3.5 billion to develop the Aynak copper field in Logar province. And despite the continuing security concerns and infrastructure challenges that have hampered progress at Aynak—the ambitious proposal also called for the construction of a freight railway, a power plant, housing, a mosque, and a hospital—China remains in the running to develop the Hajigak iron ore deposit in Bamiyan province, west of Kabul.
Of late, Beijing has launched a charm offensive in Afghanistan, having no doubt sensed, as with most other states in the region, that the time to begin shaping Kabul’s post-2011 regional alignments is now. Thus, during his March trip to Beijing, Afghan president Hamid Karzai was treated to meetings with Chinese president Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao, and Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. In the course of the visit, Karzai and his Chinese hosts signed agreements on expanding economic cooperation, ensuring favorable tariffs on Afghan exports, and creating scholarships for technical training programs across a range of critical fields: commerce, communications, education, health, economics, and counternarcotics.
According to the CRS report, China may now be prepared to expand its engagement in Afghanistan into the realm of security. The report hinted that within the last six months there had been signs that the PRC could be persuaded to deploy PLA forces to Afghanistan:
“Some diplomats in Washington, DC, indicated to CRS in November 2009 that, should President Obama ask for China to contribute People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces, even in a non-combat role, to Afghanistan, China might agree to that request.”
China has already made some very limited contributions to the training of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). In the fall of 2009, the PRC launched a mine-clearing training course for officers from the ANSF and the Iraqi Security Forces at the PLA’s University of Science and Technology in Nanjing. In March, Xinhua reported that Defense Minister Liang Guanglie, following meetings with his Afghan counterpart, Adbul Rahim Wardak, pledged that the “Chinese military will continue assistance to the Afghan National Army(ANA) to improve their capacity of safeguarding national sovereignty, territorial integrity and domestic stability.” What’s more, reports have suggested that a senior PLA official may have discussed with Karzai the possibility of training and equipping the ANSF once coalition forces depart Afghanistan.
The Obama administration appears eager to promote greater Chinese involvement in Afghanistan on all fronts. According to the statement released by the White House following the president’s November trip to Beijing, the U.S and China “are ready to strengthen communication, dialogue, and cooperation on issues related to South Asia and work together to promote peace, stability and development in that region.” And more recently, during a brief visit to China earlier this month, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake reiterated that “China has an important stake in the success of these efforts [in Afghanistan]. And we welcome the opportunity to discuss ways China can contribute more both through investments and through assistance of various kinds.” Blake later confirmed that no military options were being discussed, however, and when asked if there were any areas in which the U.S. and China may be duplicating efforts — a possibility he had cited as a concern — Blake had this to say:
“Not that I’m aware of. Not on any significant scale. But again, sometimes we’re not aware of everything that China is doing so we would welcome as much information as possible about what China is doing so that, again, we can ensure proper coordination, but also think about ways that China might do more. China is a growing influence all over South Asia, and I think can do a lot.”
And this is where the importance of the long-term U.S.-Afghanistan strategic partnership arises. In the coming year and beyond, a sustained American presence in Afghanistan would allow the U.S. to offset Chinese efforts to cultivate undue influence and access throughout South Asia. It’s no secret that China’s close ties with Pakistan and its continuing efforts to improve relations with Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka are a means of hemming in India, its regional rival. But close Sino-Afghan ties needn’t come at India’s expense, so long as continued U.S. engagement in Afghanistan can serve as a check on regional competition. (Then again, it’s possible that Delhi and Beijing’s interests in Afghanistan might be oddly compatible — India is concerned with shaping the Afghan government’s regional political alignment and with maintaining its “soft power” among the Afghan population; China wants access to Afghan markets and resources with no political strings attached.)
But that’s assuming all goes well in the next year, and the U.S. makes good on its commitment to strategic partnership post-2011. Last fall, Robert Kaplan argued persuasively in the New York Times that regardless of the outcome of the war in Afghanistan, China stands to benefit: a stable, secure Afghanistan would allow for ease of investment and, as Kaplan explains, would provide “a secure conduit for roads and energy pipelines that will bring natural resources from the Indian Ocean and elsewhere.” On the other hand, an unsteady Afghanistan, home to a latent, reintegrated-but-perhaps-not-fully-reconciled Taliban, while of course not conducive to Chinese investment, would be India’s worst nightmare — and thus a strategic boon for the PRC.
No matter how you slice it, China is poised to win in Afghanistan.
Tim Sullivan is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
