China’s Afghan Outreach

CHINA’S AFGHAN OUTREACH

Given India’s and China’s propensity to increase their respective regional influence, often creating zones of overlapping and contending interests, countries like Afghanistan are bound to look for ways to maximize their gains and minimize their losses.

India’s strategic partnership with Afghanistan has not stopped the latter from expanding its areas of engagement with China.

While India’s role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan, and its largely benign presence there, can be seen as an asset as far as the protection and promotion of India’s interests are concerned, its relative absence from the political negotiations involving the Taliban has been acutely debated.

On the other hand, China, notwithstanding its low profile until more recently, seems to be opening new chapters in its Afghan outreach, being more willing to open communication channels to the Taliban, with its ally in the region, Pakistan, playing the role of a catalyst.

Amid American exit from Afghanistan, rising US-China tensions, deteriorating India-Pakistan relations, the new low in India-China ties, and, finally, the tenuous path to peace in Afghanistan, it is imperative to assess how New Delhi should read the Chinese designs in Afghanistan, especially in the wake of the recent meeting between China, Pakistan, Nepal, and Afghanistan

China also plans to expand China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Afghanistan, as envisioned via a railway line to Kandahar.