Brian M Downing
The Afghan opposition may find that a promising path to bettering their country runs through Beijing. Former Afghan officials in exile will argue that China will benefit from leaning on the Taliban. The situation on the ground will make a stronger case. Beijing already sees the Taliban as loathsome, rustic barbarians whose militant Islamism poses a danger to its Muslim populations. It may see them as inept, unworthy business partners too.
What China wanted
Beijing did not expect the Taliban to take the entire country. No one did. China wanted a government in Kabul that would provide security for its investments and extractions and a presentable face to the outside world. Over the years China built working relations with Afghan politicians, chiefly through buying the rights to natural resources. Not all transactions were above the table.
Beijing envisioned a deferent Kabul government using national wealth, engineered by Chinese forms, to mollify various groups – the Taliban of course but also non-Taliban Pashtuns and northern peoples. The Taliban were not to oversee operations from Kabul. Directing an insurgency does not confer ability to manage an economy, though the leaders might think it does.
What China got
When Kabul fell, Beijing’s obliging political-business partners high-tailed it. China must now contend with a new, hopelessly inexperienced management team. Its predecessors in the 1990s showed no business acumen, the country languished, and opposition eventually overwhelmed them.
Beijing has no qualms about regimes with poor human rights records but the previous Taliban government was appalling in that regard and the new one is unpromising. This may deter foreign aid and force Beijing to pump in more money than it planned. Further, the Taliban may prove unable to form a competent unified government, deal with the heterogeneous population, or handle persistent demonstrations and in time, armed opposition.
What China can do
Opposition leaders will press Beijing to use its considerable clout to soften Taliban rule. An unstable country is in no one’s interest. China wants smooth business operations for its long march and the Taliban, at present, may slow things down in their own country and much of Central Asia. China had to close down some operations during the adverse business climate of the last decade or so and it wants them up and running soon.
The case for Chinese pressure will be made by exile figures such as the Tajik Abdullah Abdullah and the Pashtun Hamid Karzai, who though despised in the US, inked lucrative deals with China. Their case will be bolstered by the governments of Qatar and the UAE, which seek to burnish their diplomatic credentials. Qatar’s Al Jazeera covers Taliban rule quite closely and broadcasts the thus far dismal record across the Islamic world and the West.
Neighboring Tajikistan is concerned by mistreatment of its brethren, many of whom have fled fled into its territory and formed a resistance movement there, as they did in the nineties. Thus far, the Iranian government has shown little concern for the Shia Hazara, though reformists have.
To make the most of its Afghan assets, China should, through intermediaries in the Pakistani military, which was critical to the Taliban victory, press the new government in Kabul to step back from harsh rule and be more attentive to its image in the world, if only to get more foreign aid. Parts of the Taliban government already realize this.
The Taliban must also recognize that Pashtuns cannot govern the country in a heavy-handed manner. Afghanistan is about 58% non-Pashtun and most of them loathe the Taliban and are looking for ways to fight them. A measure of autonomy to the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazara is essential to forestalling armed conflict, improving the prospects for stability, and keeping raw materials headed to world markets.
The Taliban response
Chinese diplomacy aimed at reform will of course not be readily accepted by the Taliban. It will deepen the fissure between pragmatists and hardliners which by most accounts is already problematic. Even many pragmatists will object. They did not fight Soviet and then American troops for the last forty-two years to take orders from Chinese overlords.
Human rights, many Taliban will object, is a foreign, non-Islamic notion. Adopting the reforms that the outside world insists upon will open the door to impiety and moral decay – again, a betrayal of four decades of hardship.
Autonomy to northern ethnic groups would bring great risks. It was northerners who expelled the Taliban from power twenty years ago, albeit with foreign help. While at present only a little help is forthcoming from Tajikistan, the prospects of Russia and Iran backing the north against the Taliban in coming years, as they did in the nineties, cannot be ruled out.
The Taliban will want as little reform as possible and a firm hand across the north. But too little regard for Beijing’s diplomacy may interrupt export revenue during a difficult consolidation period. In time their disregard may convince China that a new management team is needed in Kabul so that the regional co-prosperity sphere may better flourish.
© 2021 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.