China Sends More Signals On Afghanistan

By Steve Hynd

At the start of the month, the deputy general of the China Council for National Security Policy Studies, Li Qinggong, set out his plan for an American exit route from Afghanistan in the English-language China Daily. In an article that, according to former Indian ambassador M. K. Bhadrakumar, should "receive careful attention", Li Quingong suggested that the U.S. should withdraw completely, to be replaced by a UNSC-backed reconciliation and peacekeeping presence.

Since then, the Afghan Taliban have indicated that they'd be accomodating to something along those lines - and I wrote that there are potential merits for all concerned in such a solution. The devil, as usual, would be in the details - but the overall schema isn't an absurd one on the face of it.

Yesterday, Li Quinggong published another op-ed, likewise in the government mouthpiece China Daily. Entitled Taking High Road To Kabul, it suggests:

China's efforts to help a war-torn Afghanistan should not be distorted, but it seems it is time for the country to seriously weigh possibilities for cooperation with the United States in extricating Afghanistan from omnipresent violence and helping Afghans retrieve long-lost peace and rebuild destroyed homeland.

And continues:

Following the US' troops withdrawal from Iraq, the Afghanistan war has increasingly remained an outstanding issue in the international community, with many nations becoming more and more concerned about its settlement. However, some countries insist on war as a solution to the issue in defiance of mainstream international opinion. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has even asked China to send troops to the Afghan battlefield. By raising such a request, Brown proves ignorant of China's long-standing stance of opposing the Afghanistan war and the country's long-cherished principle of "non-involvement" in the war or in any kind of military assistance programs.

It is China's consistent stance that the Afghanistan issue should be resolved in a peaceful manner and it only pursues cooperation with other countries under this precondition. As a neighbor of Afghanistan, China is willing to cooperate with the US, the initiator of the war, on the premise that the US withdraws its troops from the country and return its people peace.

Provided those preconditions are met, the two countries can be expected to boost cooperation in promoting much-needed reconciliation among Afghanistan's political factions, and deployment of international peacekeeping missions in its land and accelerating its reconstruction process. But any kind of Sino-US cooperation should be adopted in a gradual manner and in ways that could help ease mutual misgivings and enhance mutual trust.

Also, China and the US could play a more active role and push for convening an international conference on Afghanistan to help the parties concerned sign a peace accord and include the country's security and stability in the framework of the UN Security Council.

Li Quinggong is almost certainly speaking for the Chinese leadership, given his position and the choice of venue for his op-eds. Apparently, China's "long-standing stance of opposing the Afghanistan war and the country's long-cherished principle of 'non-involvement' in the war or in any kind of military assistance programs" while the U.S. led occupation continues is a very different thing from China's potential participation in the "deployment of international peacekeeping missions".

That's interesting and opens up a whole new option space where Afghanistan doesn't have to be a purely American problem, nor one that can only be solved by America.