In recent months, China has made pronouncements that reveal it is willing, perhaps even eager, to grow its engagement with troubled Afghanistan, whose remote Wakhan Corridor abuts China’s western border. On Feb. 12, while visiting Pakistan, Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated China’s desire to play a “constructive role” in a hypothetical peace process. “We will support the Afghan government in realizing reconciliation with various political factions including the Taliban,” Mr. Wang told reporters in Islamabad, according to Reuters. That follows on other initial attempts China has made to feel out the political landscape there. Late last year, two Afghan Taliban officials traveled with Pakistani officials to Beijing to discuss a potential peace process. In London in December, China, the United States and Afghanistan held a first trilateral meeting to discuss the Afghan future. Present at the meeting was Sun Yuxi, China’s special envoy to Afghanistan. Any sign of China’s potentially becoming a regional peacemaker is welcome news for the Obama administration, which has supported political reconciliation in Afghanistan. At the center of promoting United States-China dialogue on Afghanistan is Barnett Rubin, a veteran Afghanistan scholar who served for four and a half years as a senior adviser to the American government’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was hired for that position in 2009 by Richard C. Holbrooke, the first special envoy, and worked with two of Mr. Holbrooke’s successors after his death in 2010. Since the summer of 2012, Mr. Rubin, who is also part of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, has helped to organize seven meetings on Afghanistan that make up a “track two” dialogue between American and Chinese parties. He recently shared his thoughts with The New York Times on China’s growing engagement with Afghan politics, what the United States would like to see result from that relationship and China’s concerns over rising Uighur militancy along its western frontier. Q. As the United States draws down its combat troops in Afghanistan, what kind of role would it like to see China play in the country? A. While the U.S. is ending its combat role in Afghanistan, we and our allies have pledged a continuing commitment to Afghanistan for at least a decade. So there is no question of China filling any “vacuum” left by the U.S., as people sometimes say. Rather there is a need for China to become a partner of the U.S. in its extensive noncombat roles. Ultimately, the stability of Afghanistan, a landlocked country in Asia, will depend on its neighbors agreeing to make it a center of cooperation rather than conflict. China is Afghanistan’s largest neighbor and has the world’s second-largest economy. The U.S. hopes that China will become a full-fledged partner in international efforts to support and stabilize Afghanistan. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has also asked that the U.S. and China make Afghanistan into the best example of their cooperation. China is unlikely to provide large amounts of financial assistance, but it has announced plans for a number of large regional economic initiatives, including the Silk Road Economic Belt (both overland and maritime) and the Pakistan Economic Corridor. The U.S. is also supporting major investment in regional economic integration under the name of the New Silk Road Project. These programs can complement each other in creating an economic incentive to cooperation around and in Afghanistan that has not existed before. Plus China has a unique relationship with Pakistan. U.N. Special Representative of the Secretary General Lakhdar Brahimi used to say, “Afghanistan cannot be stable unless Pakistan wants it to be stable,” and it is still true, but there is immense distrust between the two. Pakistan and Afghanistan both trust China, insofar as the word trust has any application in international affairs, and Chinese and U.S. interests are largely convergent in the region. Therefore, a process of cooperation among these four countries provides the best hope of persuading Pakistan it can achieve legitimate national objectives without the use of militant proxy forces that could ultimately destroy Pakistan itself. India, Iran and Russia have reservations about such a process, for fear of being marginalized. China is in a better position than the U.S. to reassure Iran and Russia, and the U.S. can work with both India and China to assure that all have a share in regional development and that antiterror efforts target anti-Indian groups as well. I have been encouraged by the efforts of senior Chinese diplomats to engage India and Russia and persuade them that China wants to help support regional security and create economic structures that will be of benefit to both countries. Q. How willing is China to engage in the politics of Afghanistan? What are its main motivations for getting involved in the internal politics there? What signs of wariness do you detect? A. The Chinese emphasize that “noninterference” in the internal politics of other countries is a pillar of their foreign policy. China will support Afghan efforts to bring the Taliban and others fighting the current international presence and the government into the political system to provide the regional stability needed for cooperation on counterterrorism and economic growth. But it will do so mainly by cooperation with the governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the U.S., not by becoming involved with Afghanistan’s domestic politics. From what I have seen, China has neither the goal nor the ability to become involved in internal Afghan politics. Chinese have less personal contact and weaker personal relationships with Afghan political actors than officials and others from the U.S., Pakistan, Iran, Russia or India. They are reluctant to deploy people on the ground. Their risk-averse operational doctrines may have to change if they believe that their interests will require deeper involvement than heretofore. Q. Is China growing its investments in Afghanistan? The Aynak copper mine appeared in many news stories in recent years, but it has not had much success as a business venture. A. Virtually all foreign investments in Afghanistan, including the Chinese investment in the Aynak copper mine, are stalled by insecurity and uncertainty over the future. At this point, contrary to some outdated impressions, China is not primarily interested in Afghanistan for its natural resources. It is prepared to wait until investments can become genuinely profitable. China’s main motivations are denying sanctuary to terrorist and separatist groups that target China and creating a stable regional environment to encourage investment, especially in interior and western China. China has increasingly emphasized expanding trade with Central Asia to develop its interior and the western regions, as well as catering to domestic demand rather than solely relying on export-led growth that has primarily benefited its coastal cities. Q. The peace process in Afghanistan is at a nascent stage now. Could actions by China give it momentum? A. The main obstacles to a peace process have been the Afghan Taliban’s refusal to negotiate with the Afghan government and Pakistan’s willingness to allow the Afghan Taliban open-ended access to a sanctuary where they can organize and raise funds. The imminent departure of U.S. troops, the transfer of Taliban leaders out of Guantánamo and the transfer of responsibility for all detainees in Afghanistan to the Afghan government are removing the major reasons the Taliban have given for their refusal to meet the government. The Taliban’s open-ended sanctuary in Pakistan greatly reduced the incentive for the Taliban to talk to the Afghan government. Pakistan wanted to retain the Afghan Taliban as an instrument of pressure against Afghanistan and the United States, given the Afghan state’s many claims against Pakistan and the warming of Afghan-Indian and U.S.-Indian relations. China’s willingness to cooperate with the governments of both Pakistan and Afghanistan may enable it to reduce significantly the degree of threat that the Pakistani elite sees from Afghanistan and the U.S. Pakistan will be much more willing to provide access to the exiled Taliban leadership on its territory to China than to Afghanistan or the U.S. Since China is a neighbor with permanent reliable interests, its influence is likely to be more enduring than that of the U.S. Q. What can you tell us about the recent meetings that China has had with officials of the Afghan Taliban? Is China now using channels to communicate with the Taliban that bypass Pakistani agencies? A. I have no direct knowledge of these meetings. The Taliban leadership lives in Pakistan, mainly around the cities of Quetta, Karachi and Peshawar, but they managed to establish a political office in Qatar outside of direct Pakistani control. The office has no official status, and Pakistan tries to influence and pressure it, but it has a greater margin of maneuver than the leaders in Pakistan. The Taliban have denied that they have had talks with the Afghan government in China or that China is playing any mediating role. They portray their visits to Beijing as part of their longstanding relations with several countries to explain their positions. It is possible that China, like a number of other countries, including the U.S. in 2011-12, has had direct contact with the Taliban representatives in Qatar, but this is a less salient question than in the past. President [Hamid] Karzai saw reconciliation with the Taliban as a way to undermine Pakistan’s leverage in Afghanistan, and therefore he tried to establish secret direct contacts with them independent of Pakistan. President Ghani seems to have concluded that cooperation with Pakistan is the only way to bring peace to Afghanistan, which is a politically risky position for him to take in Afghanistan, where resentment of Pakistan runs high. But that means he has no reason to bypass Pakistan in making these preliminary contacts and in asking for an end to the sanctuary. Of course, if an actual process of negotiation starts, discussion of future political arrangements will involve only Afghans. But the implementation of any such agreement, particularly of the demobilization and demilitarization of the Taliban, would require cooperation. Q. What do we know about the presence of militant Uighurs in Afghanistan and the extent to which they are training in Pakistan’s tribal belt? How often do you hear Chinese officials mention concerns over security in Xinjiang? A. There seems to be broad agreement that there are several hundred Uighurs from the Xinjiang autonomous region engaged in militant activity or training, mainly in Pakistan, but some also in northern Afghanistan, where they may be co-located with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Chinese officials regularly cite this as a major source of their concern over regional stability. It is difficult to evaluate the reports because Uighurs and Uzbeks are very similar linguistically and culturally, so people reported to be Uighurs may actually be Uzbeks and vice versa. My contacts in China tell me that there is little or no evidence of direct operational involvement in terrorist acts in China by Uighurs in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Chinese seem more concerned about online radicalization emanating from the very substantial and nationalist Uighur community in Turkey. Another major concern is the number of Chinese citizens, not all of them Uighurs, fighting with Sunni militant groups in Syria. Some estimates place the number at around 500, but I can’t verify that. Chinese officials also have a talking point that the U.S. has a double standard on terrorism because nonviolent Uighur nationalist or separatist organizations enjoy freedom of expression in the U.S. The Chinese want to create an international consensus against the “Three Evils” of terrorism, separatism and extremism. The U.S. and European countries explain that nonviolent expression of separatist or even extremist ideas is legally protected in our system. The main origins of the conflict dynamic in Xinjiang and related terrorist attacks in China are domestic (some Chinese scholars will say this openly), but foreign-based training or radicalization could make any conflict more violent and difficult to resolve. My impression is that the push from the government to develop interior and western China, leading to labor migration of ethnic Han and the Sinicization of local cities and towns, is the main reason that clashes have increased. It is a challenge for any large and diverse state intent on rapid development to implement it in such a way that it does not give rise to resistance by groups who feel marginalized.
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