Daily Mail
China is reportedly prepared to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan if they succeed in toppling the Western-backed government in Kabul.
According to U.S. and foreign intelligence sources cited by U.S. News & World Report, Chinese Communist Party leaders are preparing to formalize their relationship with the Islamist insurgents.
It comes as the Taliban control nearly two-thirds of Afghanistan including half of the 34 provincial capitals following a relentless military blitz, with the group closing in on Kabul.
Recognition from Beijing would come as a blow to President Joe Biden‘s plan to use the threat of international isolation to force the Taliban back into talks for a political settlement.
China has long cultivated close ties with Pakistan, which shares a long mountainous border with Afghanistan. Many Afghans believe Pakistan is tacitly aiding the Taliban by providing safe haven for training camps and medical aid to wounded fighters.
‘I can say openly to Afghans that this war, it isn’t between Taliban and the Afghan Government. It is Pakistan’s war against the Afghan nation,’ Ismail Khan, a powerful U.S.-allied warlord near Herat, told the AP this week. ‘The Taliban are their resource and are working as a servant.’
Meanwhile, Beijing may see an opportunity to make inroads with what may be the inevitable next rulers of Afghanistan, which shares a border with China but is largely untapped in China’s regional economic expansion plans.
‘Beijing has reportedly been actively engaging with Kabul on construction of the Peshawar-Kabul motorway, which would connect Pakistan to Afghanistan and make Kabul a participant in China’s massive infrastructure and investment plan, the Belt and Road Initiative,’ wrote Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst for RAND.
‘Beijing is also building a major road through the Wakhan Corridor—a slim strip of mountainous territory connecting China’s westernmost province of Xinjiang to Afghanistan—and onward to Pakistan and Central Asia, complementing its existing road network through the region,’ he noted.
