Top (left) Emily Ashbridge; (right) Arash Yaqin; Bottom (left) Noorulain Naseem; (right) Fatima Raza

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Stimson Panel Examines China’s Influence on Pakistan, Afghanistan
By Elaine Pasquini

Washington: As the 10-year anniversary of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) approaches, along with the two-year anniversary of the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Stimson Center held a July 27, 2023, webinar to examine China’s strategic role in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Emily Ashbridge, managing editor of South Asian Voices, the Stimson Center’s online policy platform for analysis and debate on South and Central Asia, moderated the timely discussion.

Noorulain Naseem, a researcher on US-Pakistan relations at the Islamabad Research Institute and a visiting fellow at the Stimson Center, related the positive news of the recent visit to Kabul of Ambassador Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s special representative to Afghanistan, who held meetings with Taliban officials focusing on mutual trade and economic and security cooperation. “He was very hopeful that in the future there will be a series of meetings and engagements,” she said.

Despite problems in the relationship such as the newly fenced border and cross-border incidents between the security forces of both countries, Naseem pointed out there is increased interaction for education, familial ties, health, and business. One note of positivity is that bilateral trade has increased between Afghanistan and Pakistan, currently standing at more than $2 billion. Presently, Pakistan hosts more than 3.5 million Afghans who have crossed the border despite the fencing. “This region’s ethno-cultural construct is a little different from the rest of the world,” she stated.

Since 2021, China has engaged several times with the foreign ministers of Afghanistan’s neighboring states to create a regional stance with respect to the Taliban government, she noted. There is an understanding between China and Pakistan that Afghanistan will be included in CPEC, a vital component of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature global infrastructure plan known as the Belt and Road Initiative, particularly projects that aim to connect Central Asia through Afghanistan to Pakistan. Recently, a deal was signed for a railroad link between Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“In Afghanistan, I think the signing of the Mes Aynak copper mine project and the on-ground assessments by the Chinese for the Amu Darya basin oil reserves really tell you how eager China is to invest in regions and areas where Western financial institutions and states are quite reluctant to invest,” Naseem explained. “I think China is doing this to establish integration in terms of the economy with the Afghan Taliban which will ensure in the future that their economic stakes are aligned to the point that security concerns on the ground are also aligned.” The Taliban, she added, are ready to sign economic deals with Central Asian states, Pakistan, and China because of the dividends they will receive.

Arash Yaqin, a national security and foreign policy cultural intelligence analyst, noted over the past couple of years there were many strategic communication promises of cooperation between the Taliban and China, “but in fact we did not see a lot of tangible cooperation. Unlike other countries in the region, such as Pakistan and Iran, Afghanistan has not offered a greater opportunity for China; it’s not as important as Pakistan or Iran,” he argued.

Due to Afghanistan’s internal problems, it’s a kind of “partnership of necessity” between the two countries at this point and how it will work in the future depends on stability in the region and specifically in Afghanistan, Yaqin said. China sees Afghanistan in terms of long-term strategy and cooperation, while the Taliban are still looking for partners in the West and other countries in the region, he added.

China is very new to Afghanistan despite a historic background of being a part of the Silk Road, Yaqin noted. From the 16 th to 17 th century Afghanistan never looked toward China as it always looked to the north to Russia and then to the West. “Since 1919 in terms of policy and culture, everything was focused more toward Islamic empires with the Persian influence,” he explained.

In contrast, Pakistan’s partnership with China is economic-based and is a “win-win situation,” Yaqin said, pointing to the new international airport at Gwadar – funded by China at a cost of $246 million – which will establish it as a key international trade and logistic hub.

Fatima Raza, a research assistant at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad,

questioned the actual policy of the US in South Asia. “It’s hard to follow that policy which has extricated itself from regional affairs and with not a plan in sight there is no tangible scenario.”

Washington is extremely wary of Chinese expansion in the region, she continued, and closely follow it. The US tries to “prop up India as important competition to China,” she argued, “but that is no longer China’s concern because in China’s case words actually mean deeds. When they say something, they follow through on it. They’re actually on the ground…and have a lot of on-ground influence.”

Part of China’s increasing diplomatic power is evident in Beijing’s recent brokering of improved relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which “has completely changed the face and perspective of how even the South Asia region is being viewed by the United States” and is important to Pakistan as it shares a border with Iran and has a relationship with Saudi Arabia. “It was a huge strategic sort of win that China scored right from underneath the United States,” she commented.  

Going forward, however, Pakistan, with its good relationship with both China and the United States, could aspire to become a connecting bridge between the two as it once used to be “as opposed to picking sides which could escalate a great power competition even more and endanger regional stability and prosperity,” she concluded.

(Elaine Pasquini is a freelance journalist. Her reports appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Nuze.Ink.)

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