Pakistanis, both common people and informed analysts, have a fantasized approach towards foreign policy and the geopolitical realities that govern them. It is very common to see Pakistanis daydream after every major geopolitical event. One such event was the American withdrawal from Afghanistan; without delay, analysts started romanticizing the absurd.
Most of these geopolitical fantasies were outlandish in nature - this ranged from the rise of a Muslim power to the establishment of a religiously inspired state in Afghanistan. However, one particularly appeared realistic. This fantasy was based on the prediction that China as a rising great power that rivals the United States, would fill the vacuum left behind by the withdrawing American military forces. Since China is an economic power, it would help reconstruct Afghanistan and bring economic opportunities into the war-torn country. China, in the wake of the American withdrawal, didn’t make any overtures to include Afghanistan in its security sphere. The only major military project the Chinese government initiated in Afghanistan was a visit from a Chinese military delegation in 2016 when General Fang Fenghui, then Chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army, offered more than $70 million in military aid to the country. In July of the same year, China delivered military equipment to the Afghan forces, including small arms and military vehicle parts.
This happened while US forces were in full control of Afghanistan’s security affairs and the Washington backed government of Ashraf Ghani was ruling from Kabul. As far as the Taliban are concerned, what the Chinese government was demanding from them was nothing else than to control the Eastern Turkistan Movement’s militant wing from making forays into the Chinese Xinjiang province, which is predominantly Muslim. This was the Chinese demand from the Taliban while the Americans were present in Afghanistan and this demand continued to exist after the American withdrawal.
The fantasies of Pakistan’s right-wing analysts didn’t come true when predictions were made that Chinese investment will transform Afghanistan into a vibrant economy. The only major project of the Chinese government approved by the Taliban government in Kabul was a $216 million Chinese investment project for an industrial park outside Kabul, which is expected to host 150 factories. Another non-industrial business project of the Chinese government is the “Pine Nut Corridors" launched by China in January 2022, through which 1,500 tonnes of Afghan pine nuts were imported by air from Afghanistan into the Chinese local market.
The Chinese government announced an emergency aid package of $31 million the day after the Taliban announced its formation of an interim government. The aid package included food supplies and 3 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines. Chinese assistance was minor compared to the US donating $1.1 billion in the year following the Taliban takeover. Following the earthquake and winter of food shortages in 2022 US officials made the following announcement, "the United States is providing nearly $327 million in additional humanitarian assistance to help the people of Afghanistan. This funding includes nearly $119 million through the Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration and nearly $208 million through the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, bringing the total U.S. humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan and neighboring countries to more than $1.1 billion since the Taliban takeover one year ago in August 2021.”
There are two significant differences between US and Chinese assistance to Afghanistan. While the US administration provides assistance indirectly through the United Nations and other multilateral and regional programs of assistance, the Chinese provide humanitarian and economic assistance as part of a direct bilateral arrangement with the Taliban government in Kabul. Secondly, the US administration and their non-governmental sector tie the economic and humanitarian assistance with the condition that the Taliban reform themselves on human rights and women rights issues. China doesn’t attach any such conditions with its economic and humanitarian assistance.
The amount and nature of humanitarian and economic assistance flowing into Taliban controlled Afghanistan is paltry, but that does not stop our armchair analysts from predicting a future of geopolitical control and dominance. The Taliban and their love for freedom is a good topic for fantasized fictional story telling. But the hunger, poverty, economic backwardness and economic malaise that is prevailing in Afghan society is nothing to be fantasized.
40 years ago, when the Afghans were taking up arms against the Soviet military in the mountains of Afghanistan, Chinese society was experiencing the same amount of poverty and economic decline. The Chinese government and their leaders put their people to work and engaged Chinese society in the relentless pursuit of efficiency in industrial manufacturing. This was the same time when Afghanistan was being inundated with the latest in weapons technology. China is now the world leader in technology innovation and close to being the world's largest economy. Afghanistan is the world leader in poverty, hunger and economic underdevelopment; it is also perhaps also a subject for fools in Pakistan who never stop fantasizing about Afghanistan’s miseries.
Afghanistan is now a huge volcano, which could erupt any moment. Pakistanis should stop fantasizing about geopolitical control or dominance. Weapons and arms and those who bear them, if they are not in the control of proper political authority, can produce results which in time will be difficult even for the most foolish optimist to be able to concoct fantasies around. The Taliban fetishists will soon realize that they are on the wrong side of history.
There is, however, one geopolitical lesson to be learnt from Afghanistan’s situation—that no foreign power is willing or even ready to fill the vacuum left behind by the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Pakistan’s hardliners should emerge out of their fantasy world and start realizing that there will be no one—not Russia, China nor any regional power, willing to stabilize Afghanistan from the outside. Afghanistan is likely to become a lawless expanse in the absence of a robust economic recovery and a powerful centralized state.
What and who will protect us when this lawlessness will spill over across our border? Another war, where we might not even have a powerful backer, and which has the potential to erase the international border that divides the stateless and lawless territory of Afghanistan from Pakistan’s territory, where the state machinery still holds the ground. The wrong strategic choices could be even more devastating for Pakistan in the near future. Let's prove we are not on the wrong side of history this time.
Most of these geopolitical fantasies were outlandish in nature - this ranged from the rise of a Muslim power to the establishment of a religiously inspired state in Afghanistan. However, one particularly appeared realistic. This fantasy was based on the prediction that China as a rising great power that rivals the United States, would fill the vacuum left behind by the withdrawing American military forces. Since China is an economic power, it would help reconstruct Afghanistan and bring economic opportunities into the war-torn country. China, in the wake of the American withdrawal, didn’t make any overtures to include Afghanistan in its security sphere. The only major military project the Chinese government initiated in Afghanistan was a visit from a Chinese military delegation in 2016 when General Fang Fenghui, then Chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army, offered more than $70 million in military aid to the country. In July of the same year, China delivered military equipment to the Afghan forces, including small arms and military vehicle parts.
This happened while US forces were in full control of Afghanistan’s security affairs and the Washington backed government of Ashraf Ghani was ruling from Kabul. As far as the Taliban are concerned, what the Chinese government was demanding from them was nothing else than to control the Eastern Turkistan Movement’s militant wing from making forays into the Chinese Xinjiang province, which is predominantly Muslim. This was the Chinese demand from the Taliban while the Americans were present in Afghanistan and this demand continued to exist after the American withdrawal.
The fantasies of Pakistan’s right-wing analysts didn’t come true when predictions were made that Chinese investment will transform Afghanistan into a vibrant economy. The only major project of the Chinese government approved by the Taliban government in Kabul was a $216 million Chinese investment project for an industrial park outside Kabul, which is expected to host 150 factories. Another non-industrial business project of the Chinese government is the “Pine Nut Corridors" launched by China in January 2022, through which 1,500 tonnes of Afghan pine nuts were imported by air from Afghanistan into the Chinese local market.
The Chinese government announced an emergency aid package of $31 million the day after the Taliban announced its formation of an interim government. The aid package included food supplies and 3 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines. Chinese assistance was minor compared to the US donating $1.1 billion in the year following the Taliban takeover. Following the earthquake and winter of food shortages in 2022 US officials made the following announcement, "the United States is providing nearly $327 million in additional humanitarian assistance to help the people of Afghanistan. This funding includes nearly $119 million through the Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration and nearly $208 million through the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, bringing the total U.S. humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan and neighboring countries to more than $1.1 billion since the Taliban takeover one year ago in August 2021.”
There are two significant differences between US and Chinese assistance to Afghanistan. While the US administration provides assistance indirectly through the United Nations and other multilateral and regional programs of assistance, the Chinese provide humanitarian and economic assistance as part of a direct bilateral arrangement with the Taliban government in Kabul. Secondly, the US administration and their non-governmental sector tie the economic and humanitarian assistance with the condition that the Taliban reform themselves on human rights and women rights issues. China doesn’t attach any such conditions with its economic and humanitarian assistance.
The amount and nature of humanitarian and economic assistance flowing into Taliban controlled Afghanistan is paltry, but that does not stop our armchair analysts from predicting a future of geopolitical control and dominance. The Taliban and their love for freedom is a good topic for fantasized fictional story telling. But the hunger, poverty, economic backwardness and economic malaise that is prevailing in Afghan society is nothing to be fantasized.
40 years ago, when the Afghans were taking up arms against the Soviet military in the mountains of Afghanistan, Chinese society was experiencing the same amount of poverty and economic decline. The Chinese government and their leaders put their people to work and engaged Chinese society in the relentless pursuit of efficiency in industrial manufacturing. This was the same time when Afghanistan was being inundated with the latest in weapons technology. China is now the world leader in technology innovation and close to being the world's largest economy. Afghanistan is the world leader in poverty, hunger and economic underdevelopment; it is also perhaps also a subject for fools in Pakistan who never stop fantasizing about Afghanistan’s miseries.
Afghanistan is now a huge volcano, which could erupt any moment. Pakistanis should stop fantasizing about geopolitical control or dominance. Weapons and arms and those who bear them, if they are not in the control of proper political authority, can produce results which in time will be difficult even for the most foolish optimist to be able to concoct fantasies around. The Taliban fetishists will soon realize that they are on the wrong side of history.
There is, however, one geopolitical lesson to be learnt from Afghanistan’s situation—that no foreign power is willing or even ready to fill the vacuum left behind by the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Pakistan’s hardliners should emerge out of their fantasy world and start realizing that there will be no one—not Russia, China nor any regional power, willing to stabilize Afghanistan from the outside. Afghanistan is likely to become a lawless expanse in the absence of a robust economic recovery and a powerful centralized state.
What and who will protect us when this lawlessness will spill over across our border? Another war, where we might not even have a powerful backer, and which has the potential to erase the international border that divides the stateless and lawless territory of Afghanistan from Pakistan’s territory, where the state machinery still holds the ground. The wrong strategic choices could be even more devastating for Pakistan in the near future. Let's prove we are not on the wrong side of history this time.