Afghan President Hamid Karzai travels to China this week eyeing investment from his mighty neighbor that has shown more interest in helping to rebuild his war-torn nation than military involvement.
More than eight years after the Taliban regime was toppled by US-led forces, Karzai will also seek to strengthen ties with China, increasingly seen as a key player in maintaining stability in Afghanistan after US troops pull out.
During the trip — his first to China since re-election last year — Karzai will hold separate talks with his counterpart President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶).
Karzai will present the Chinese leadership with a plan for reconciliation with the Taliban during his visit from tomorrow to Thursday, but financial issues are likely to dominate talks, his spokesman Waheed Omar said.
“Most of what will be discussed with the Chinese government will be on economic issues and a large number of Afghan businessmen will accompany the president,” Omar told reporters in Kabul last week.
China has a keen interest in Afghanistan’s natural resources. Three years ago, a Chinese group put a record US$3 billion into the Aynak copper mine, one of the biggest in the world.
Whereas Beijing refuses to send troops into the Afghan quagmire, despite the risk of instability in the event of an Islamist regime returning to power in Kabul and the ongoing scourge of drug trafficking, it has provided aid and assistance.
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (楊潔箎) recently pointed out that China had given “unconditional” assistance to Afghanistan in areas such as the construction of schools, hospitals, roads and waterworks.
He also stressed that China, which says it faces a militant Islamist threat in its western regions bordering central Asia, has taken part in a series of international conferences on Afghanistan in Moscow, London and Turkey.
“Representatives of many countries at the conferences were of the view that military means did not offer a fundamental solution to the Afghanistan issue,” Yang said.
Chinese observers say Beijing’s investments in Afghanistan help stability as they create employment and are therefore in step with the Afghan government’s wish to offer a future to Taliban who want to lay down their weapons.
Andrew Small of the German Marshall Fund, a US research center, said China’s “influence is potentially significant both economically ... and politically, where its close ties with Pakistan’s military could be leveraged, but Beijing has been reluctant to use this influence to complement allied efforts — it has largely pursued its bilateral interests without much reference to more broadly shared international goals.”
Experts say stronger relations between Afghanistan and its neighbors are an important factor in the success of US President Barack Obama’s strategy for the troubled country.
Obama aims to start withdrawing US troops next year. In the meantime, he has sent in military reinforcements to step up the fight against the Taliban.
In February, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen stressed how vital it was to reinforce ties with countries such as China, India and Pakistan.
“This is a key lesson we are learning in Afghanistan today ... we need an entirely new compact between all the actors on the security stage,” Rasmussen said. “India has a stake in Afghan stability, China too, and both could help further develop and rebuild Afghanistan. The same goes for Russia. Basically, Russia shares our security concerns.”
Walid Phares, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said he saw growing pressure on Karzai to widen his diplomatic activities outside the traditional realm of consultations with only Washington.
“He understands he needs to bring in other powers because US support — as President Obama stated — won’t be forever. Karzai is trying to bring in a new consensus from Asian powers, starting with China,” Phares said.
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