The rise of China-Afghanistan security relations
Over the past two years, China-Afghan security cooperation has reached
unprecedented
levels
Ahmad Bilal Khalil
Todays China-Afghanistan security relations, under Afghanistans National Unity Government (NUG), are closer than ever. The trend of increasing Sino-Afghan security relations, along with good diplomatic and economic relations, came after President Ashraf Ghanis first trip abroad to China in October 2014. There, he was warmly received by President Xi Jinping himself at the airport; during the visit, Ghanis Chinese counterpart announced $329 million in Chinese grants.
Since 2001, Beijing has been diplomatically and economically engaged in Afghanistan; however, since the establishment of the NUG, it is now slowly becoming practically engaged in Afghan security and defense affairs as well.
Chinese security pledges and assistance are generally overestimated by some Afghans, but, one thing is certain this is just the beginning of Chinese initiatives to help Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF). More Chinese assistance will be crucial if Beijing really wants to successfully complete its One Belt, One Road initiative, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC); remove its concerns about the emergence of the Islamic State; and eliminate safe havens for Uyghur militants in the region, particularly in the Pak-Afghan belt.
Compared to the Cold War and immediate post-Cold War eras, Chinas engagement in Afghan security issues is unprecedented.
Beijings security interests in Afghanistan gradually increased after the Sino-Soviet split and particularly after Brezhnevs call for an Asian Collective Security System in 1969. The Soviet proposal was designed as a plan to counter China in the aftermath of the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations. However, despite many requests to join, Afghanistan never became a member in this Cold War-influenced security system due to its own Durand line issue (joining would have required Kabul to freeze its borders, against the governments wishes) as well as opposition from neighboring China.
During the Cold War but prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Beijing tried to improve its diplomatic and economic relations with Kabul. Most importantly, China and Afghanistan signed a border agreement in 1965, making the Sino-Afghan border the only boundary to have been negotiated by Kabul independently. However, despite all these efforts, Beijing didnt have defense and security relations with Kabul at that time. Their exchanges were limited to economic, political, and cultural relations. There were, of course, Chinese securities concerns, which motivated Beijing to look more closely at developments in Afghanistan at a time when China had strained diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and had recently experienced a war with India (in 1962). Both the Soviet Union and India were actively engaged in Afghanistan.
It wasnt until Afghanistan was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1979 that Beijing began military assistance for the first time not to the Afghan government, however, to the Afghan mujahideen. Beijing was shocked by the invaston and it feared encirclement from Moscow, as the Soviets and their allies were already in control in Vietnam and Cambodia.
On December 31, 1979, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the Soviet ambassador that Afghanistan is Chinas neighbor and therefore the Soviet armed invasion of that country poses a threat to Chinas security. This cannot but arouse the grave concern of the Chinese peoples. Later, Chinese deputy defense minister Su Yu said that China would firmly stand by the Afghan people. China boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics and supported United Nations Security Council and General Assembly Resolutions in favor of the withdrawal of Soviet Forces.
According to Bakhtar News Agency, in an article published on March 12, 1985 in the Kabul Times, as of 1985 China had provided around $400 million in aid to the mujahideen. Other sources cited by Leslie Gelb in a 1984 article for the New York Times put Chinas aid to the Afghan rebels at $100 million.
In his book The Bear Trap: Afghanistans Untold Story, former Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) official Mohammad Yousuf writes, Until 1984 the bulk of all arms and ammunition was purchased from China, and they proved to be an excellent supplier, completely reliable, discreet and, at a later stage, even providing weapons as aid as well as for sale. Former Ambassador to Afghanistan Peter Tomsen wrote in his own book, The Wars of Afghanistan, that whole factories owned and run by the Chinese military were switched over to producing Soviet-type AK-47s, RPGs, and 122-mm rocket launchers [for Afghanistan.]
When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, Chinese security concerns increased once again. However, this time, with Afghanistan in a state of civil war, Beijing neither helped a particular group (as they did for the mujahideen during the Soviet invasion), nor did they assist the Afghan government, whether under Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai or Burhanuddin Rabbani.
Chinese concerns in this period centered on the export of drug trafficking, extremism, terrorism, and separatism to China and the potential for Afghanistan to become a safe haven for its own militant groups, such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).
In the 1990s, Afghanistan was the worlds largest opium cultivator. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crimes Afghanistans Opium Survey 2011, opium cultivation rose from 1995 until 2000, when Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, issues a fatwa, or religious decree, calling opium cultivation against Islam. In 1995, opium was grown on 54,000 hectares; it reached 82,000 hectares in 2000. In 2001, opium cultivation dropped to only 8,000 hectares of land.
The writer is an independent Kabul-based researcher and is currently writing a book on Sino-Afghan relations
