Afghanistan Offers New Space for Sino-US Cooperation

Afghanistan Offers New Space for Sino-US Cooperation

After the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan, the situation in the country has remained volatile and unstable and harbors risks of triggering further deterioration of the security situation in surrounding areas. China and the United States, as two stakeholders in the Afghan issue, have common interests in preserving stability in Afghanistan and promoting its peaceful reconstruction. In the state visit paid by President Xi Jinping to the United States in September 2015, the two countries reached an important understanding on strengthening pragmatic cooperation in Afghanistan, which has become a regional bright spot in the building of a new type of major power relationship between China and the United States.

The Afghan Situation in the Transitional Period

Afghanistan entered a postwar transitional period in 2015. How the situation develops depends on whether the political, economic, and security transition can be conducted smoothly. However, at present it seems the transition faces quite a few challenges.

An unpredictable political course

The current double-head system is handicapping the political transition. After the 2014 general election in Afghanistan, a so-called united national government headed by President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah was formed. This double-head system has no precedence

in Afghanistan and without a clear concept of powers and responsibilities, is increasingly revealing its structural contradictions. According to the powerdividing agreement reached by Ghani and Abdullah, Afghanistan will realize its transition from the presidential system to the congressional and cabinet system through Constitutional revision in 2016, and Abdullah will become the Prime Minister, which means the power and status of President Ghani will decrease considerably.

At present, the camp of Ghani and the camp of Abdullah are engaged in a heated rivalry in issues such as the makeup of the Cabinet, the election for the People’s Congress, and reform of electoral institutions. Both sides are trying to seize the initiative in the future Constitutional changes. The political infighting has consumed an unduly large amount of energy of both sides and caused a further intensification of such problems as government inefficiency, prevalent corruption, and difficulty in advancing reform measures. The deep and ingrained malady of Afghanistan consists in ethnic discord. Under the governance of the so-called united national government, the conflict between the ethnic Pashtun and the Northern Alliance has not eased much and has even taken on a tendency toward escalation under the skilled exploitation of the Afghan Taliban (ATA), which is mainly composed of the Pashtun. Against such a backdrop, it is hard to be optimistic about the prospects for the smooth political transition in Afghanistan. And if the two camps of Ghani and Abdullah refuse to compromise with each other, it is feared that it may give rise to another political crisis.

The road to political reconciliation has seen continued and innumerable bumps. After coming to power, the Ghani government has actively promoted a process of political reconciliation with the ATA. It also put the main weight of its work on enlisting support from its neighbor Pakistan in repairing ties with the ATA. Pakistan has made a positive response to this with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief Raheel Sharif both expressing their desire to vigorously assist the Afghan government in peace negotiations with the ATA. Deputies of the ATA and the Afghan government have made contact numerous times and the two sides held a round of peace negotiation in Murree, Pakistan, in early July 2015. China and the United States both sent their delegates to participate in the peace conference. After the Pakistani

government disclosed news of peace negotiation, the Afghan government announced that this was its first formal peace talks with ATA and would become the starting point for bilateral peace. But just when the international community considered that some hope had dawned for political reconciliation in Afghanistan, the news that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the ATA leader had been dead for two years was revealed and the second round of negotiations, originally set to held on July 31, were postponed. Despite Mullah Akhtar Mansur, assuming the position as the new leader after temporary internal turmoil within ATA, all sides, including ATA, needed a period for adaptation to the matter and thus it has been hard for the peace negotiations between the Afghan government and ATA to be resumed. The future attitude toward the peace negotiations of Mansur who is considered a moderate and his commanding capability over the ATA remain to be seen, and this has added more uncertainty to the political reconciliation process.

A grave security situation

With the phased military withdrawal of NATO forces headed by the United Sates, the ATA seemed to be staging a comeback. In September 2014, about 700 ATA fighters launched an attack in the Ajristan District of Ghazni Province in Southwestern Afghanistan during which the local government institutions and the police station were lost to the rebels. Since the spring of 2015, the ATA has launched even fiercer offensives and ignited the flames of war everywhere in Afghanistan. The security situations in the East, South and North are worrying. The ATA twice attacked and occupied Kunduz City, the capital of Kunduz Province, and threatened to attack other big cities. The frequent attacks have resulted in a large number of Afghan military and police, as well as the civilian, casualties. In the second half of 2014, more than 3,000 Afghan military and police were killed. In the first half of 2015, the death toll of Afghan civilians reached 4,921, the highest in history. Due to the influence of factors such as the serious shortage of air force capacity, insufficient equipment, and low morale, the Afghan military and police forces have found it difficult to fend off the fierce ATA offensives on their own.

Long and winding path of economic transition

Afghanistan is an important node on the Eurasian path with rich natural resources and sizable market potential and demographic dividend, which could have been a significant support for the sustained economic development of Afghanistan. Yet after more than 30 years of chaos caused by war, the Afghan infrastructure lies in ruins and many things need to be rebuilt. From 2003 to 2012, the economy based on military supplies has maintained a fairly high average annual growth rate of 9 percent. But the economic model of providing services for the foreign forces stationed in Afghanistan was hardly sustainable. With the large scale withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan, foreign capital fled rapidly, and the unemployment rate soared. The Afghan economy has plunged since 2013, registering an economic growth rate of merely 3.7 percent. The growth rate further dropped to 2 percent in 2014. According to estimates by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the economic growth rate of Afghanistan from 2015 to 2016 will be stagnant at around 3 percent. The Afghan economy at present heavily depends on foreign aid, lacks any internally generated drivers, and is in urgent need of establishing sustainable self-supporting development based on its own conditions. Given the severe security situation and fragile political environment, economic development in Afghanistan can only proceed step by step, and the input and support from external forces is still regarded as indispensable.

Overall Arrangement of the US in Afghanistan

The United States has managed to gain military bases in the central region of Asia, that is in Russia’s backyard and on the doorsteps of Iran and China through the Afghan War, elevated its influence in the region, and become the most important external force in controlling the direction in which the Afghan develops. Despite the decision made by the Obama administration to withdraw militarily from Afghanistan as a result of internal and external pressure, this does not mean that the United States will abandon Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has an important strategic position, occupies the nexus of

East-West trade exchange, and has been a place of military competition since ancient times. Currently, the South Asian, Central Asian, and West Asian regions around Afghanistan form a sagging belt between the economically developed spheres of East Asia and Europe and are virgin land for economic growth and resources exploitation and have consumer markets with huge potential for development. In recent years, many countries have competed to put forward trans-regional development plans such as Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union and China’s Silk Road Economic Belt, Afghanistan and its surrounding areas are important components of these proposals. These development plans have become competition to the New Silk Road plan advocated by the United States. Since 2014, the Islamic State has risen rapidly in the Middle East and moved fast to South Asia. It has been active in places such as Nangarhar Province in East Afghanistan and received support from extremist forces such as the Uzbekistan Islamist Movement (UIM). Given these developments, the importance of antiterrorism efforts in Afghanistan has only increased further. Obama claimed that “Afghanistan is a key piece of the network of counterterrorism partnerships that we need, from South Asia to Africa, to deal more broadly with terrorist threats quickly and prevent attacks against our homeland.”

Despite the decision made by the Obama administration to withdraw militarily from Afghanistan as a result of internal and external pressure, this does not mean that the United States will abandon Afghanistan.

As to the current strategic goals of the United States in Afghanistan, the first is to maintain minimal stability and complete a smooth military withdrawal while ensuring Afghanistan is no longer a source of threats to the security of the United States. The second is to reconstruct the strategic situation of the region in accordance with its own intentions, which means gaining a grip on the important corridor of China’s Silk Road Economic Belt to the East, to prevent and block the Southward movement of Russia to the North, to deter Iran to the West, and to correspond with India to the South by means of Afghanistan as a wedge.

To ensure its geostrategic interests in Afghanistan, the United

States actively plotted its strategic deployment in Afghanistan even while commencing its withdrawal.

Politically, building a pro-US regime and attempting to lead the process of Afghanistan’s political reconciliation

After the Afghan War ended, the United States swiftly defeated the ATA government with the help of the Northern Alliance. In the newly established Afghan government, backed by the United States, the Northern Alliance leadership controlled key posts of the government and the military and became the real force in power. By now there have been three presidential elections in Afghanistan, all having received special influence from the United States, especially the general election of 2014 in which the United States mediated between the two presidential candidates Ghani and Abdullah with no spared efforts, preventing the election from being aborted. The socalled united national government with mutual checks and balances was conducive to the continued US influence on the new Afghan regime to a certain degree.

To consolidate its ties with Afghanistan, the United States signed the Agreement of Enduring Strategic Partnership with Kabul in 2012, designated Afghanistan as a major non-NATO ally, and promised to provide it with long-term support in aspects such as social economy, defense and security, systemic construction, etc. by 2024. The United States has also promoted and held multiple international or regional conferences concerning Afghanistan to urge the international community to increase their concern about and investment in the Afghan issue.

In the late stage of the Afghan War, the US adopted a tactic of “divide and conquer” as regards the ATA and al-Qaeda and sought actively to conduct dialogue with the ATA. The United States worked the UN Security Council toward lifting sanctions against the senior ATA leadership and allocated special funds to be used to lure grassroots ATA members back to society. In 2013, the United States allowed ATA to set up its branch office in Qatar and the two sides seemed to become closer to direct dialogue. However, this never happened due to strong opposition from the Karzai government. Nonetheless, the United States has been trying to keep in

contact with ATA.

Economically, increasing assistance to Afghanistan and continuing to advance the New Silk Road plan.

Since becoming the US president, Obama has stressed the application of a “smart power” strategy and greatly increased the US’ non-military aid to Afghanistan. The United States has raised its investment in agricultural and infrastructural projects in Afghanistan, rebuilt panels at provincial levels, expanded its teams of experts, provided public utilities, and helped Afghanistan’s local governments rebuild economic institutions. In early 2015, the United States promised to provide a maximum of $800 million in aid for reform projects and the future development of Afghanistan.

The United States has also sought to revive its New Silk Road plan. In the four years since it proposing of this plan, due to the limits of its financial capacity, the United States has not been particularly generous with its investment in this plan, and large-scale projects packaged into the plan such as CASA-1000 power transmission project and the TAPI gas pipeline project have seen only sluggish development. However, since the beginning of 2015, the United States has made new exertions with high ranking officials expatiating on the significance of the New Silk Road plan and the progress achieved by testifying in Congress, publishing articles in the media, and traveling around to make speeches, among other things. The following four areas have been designated the key directions for advancement, namely the regional energy market, facilitation of trade and transportation, improvement of the efficiency of customs clearance and transit, and promotion of cultural and educational exchanges.

Militarily, slowing down the pace of military withdrawal, speeding up training, and arming the Afghan military and police.

In line with the three-step military withdrawal plan announced by Obama in 2011, the United States completed its military withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. The United States and Afghanistan signed the Bilateral Agreement on Defense and Security Cooperation in September 2014 according to which the United States could use military bases in

Kabul, Bagram, Kandahar and other six regions free besides being entitled to extraterritoriality in Afghanistan. The United States could also freely increase or reduce the number of its military personnel according to its needs, which unilaterally elevated the degree of freedom about the arrangement of military stationing. The agreement’s validity lasts until 2024 and will be automatically extended when the date comes, which grants the United States a legal guarantee of long-term military presence in Afghanistan.

However, owing to the intensifying internal and external situations facing Afghanistan, the United States has slowed down its pace of military withdrawal. During the visit to the United States by Ghani in March 2015, the United States promised to extend its military withdrawal schedule, and the 9,800 US troops currently stationed in Afghanistan will remain there until the end of 2015. Then on October 15, Obama announced the further extending of the schedule of military withdrawal, and the current 9,800 US troops in Afghanistan will stay through most of 2016. The plan is for 5,500 US troops to remain in Afghanistan until Obama leaves office in 2017. US troops will be stationed in Kabul, Bagram, Jalalabad and Kandahar and undertake two tasks, namely training the Afghan military and assisting in striking the remnants of al-Qaeda.

To ensure the stability of Afghanistan’s post-withdrawal domestic situation, the United States regards the expansion and training of the Afghan security troops as the focus of its work in Afghanistan. Within only a few years, the Afghan military and police forces have increased to nearly 350,000 and most of their expenditures are shouldered by the United States. However, large-scale military operations of the Afghan military and police still rely on US air cover, intelligence sharing, and logistical support. US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter indicated that he will seek appropriations from the Congress so as to continue to supply monetary aid to the Afghan security forces until the end of 2017.

China’s Main Concerns on the Afghanistan Issue

Since the Afghan War, the Afghan-Pakistani region has plunged into turmoil, numerous armed extremist groups have been rampant in the region, and

waves of terrorist attacks have occurred one after another whose spillover effects have created threats to the security and stability of China’s western regions. The terrorist force of the East Islamist Movement (EIM) resides in Afghanistan and acts in collusion with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, UIM to train terrorists who stage attacks in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and other provinces.

Meanwhile, the harm done to China by drugs from Afghanistan is also on the rise. Afghan drug dealers are not satisfied with merely the consumer markets of Russia and Europe and are trying to use the Karakoram Highway that connects China and Pakistan and open up a new path of drug trafficking from China down southward to Indonesia. The rampancy of Pakistan drug trafficking and transnational drug-related crimes have resulted in a considerable increase in the number of drug users in Xinjiang in recent years, and the hazard of drugs is spreading to other regions of China.

Afghanistan is an important node on the Silk Road Economic Belt and can play a unique role in promoting the development of the Chinaled initiative. But the latent risks brought by the turmoil of Afghanistan, in particular the impact of the security factor on developing resources and building industrial parks, also cannot be overlooked. Several major projects in Afghanistan that China has invested in. including the Aynak copper mine, have all yet to produce the expected results due to the undesirable security situation.

As a neighboring country sharing a border with China, the peace and stability of Afghanistan has great significance to China safeguarding the stability of its western regions and fighting the “three forces” of terrorism, separatism and extremism, containing the harm of drugs, and promoting the development of the Silk Road Economic Belt. As a friendly neighbor, China has sincerely wished and done its best to help Afghanistan realize peace, stability and development.

Since the restoration of the Chinese Embassy in Afghanistan in 2002, there have been frequent interactions between the senior leaderships of China and Afghanistan and the political mutual understanding has constantly deepened. China has actively taken part in the peaceful reconstruction process in Afghanistan by making use of its advantages in infrastructure

building and capital. By October 2014, China had provided 1.52 billion yuan in free aid to Afghanistan, trained nearly one thousand Afghan specialists in various fields through bilateral or multilateral channels, supplied a dozen batches of material assistance to Afghanistan, and helped build a number of key projects, such as the Hospital of the Republic, the teaching building and guesthouse of the Department of Chinese Language of Kabul University, the National Center for Technology and Education, and the Multi-Function Center of the Presidential Palace, all of which had a positive and instrumental effect on Afghanistan’s economic development and improved people’s livelihoods.

In 2014 alone, China gave Afghanistan 500 million yuan in free aid, and it now plans to provide a total of 1.5 billion yuan of free aid over the next three years. To support Afghanistan to strengthen the development of its management capability, China plans to train 3,000 Afghan specialists in various fields over the next five years. The two countries have also jointly held successful business forums, and the joint committee of economic and commercial cooperation of the two countries also held its second session in June 2015. China has also sent work teams to Afghanistan to conduct work on the planning for aid and infrastructure construction, and it has also provided personnel training for the cultivation of the Afghan security capacity, such as organizing anti-terrorism and drug control training for Afghan police. China transferred a batch of police equipment to Afghanistan in November 2014, including telecommunications equipment, evidence taking cameras, police helmets and shields, rapid drug-checking kits and training on operating the equipment. China has also provided training in mine-sweeping techniques and donated mine-sweeping equipment multiple times.

China has always supported the national reconciliation process of Afghanistan by and of the Afghan people, and wants the whole Afghan nation to achieve peace and stability. To these ends, China has actively participated in the international and regional cooperation concerning Afghanistan. Besides maintaining an open and smooth channel of bilateral communication with Afghanistan, China also makes good use of multilateral conferences to promote neighboring countries and the

international community to jointly support Afghanistan to realize its political reconciliation. China has held bilateral discussions on the Afghan issue with Pakistan, India, the United States, Russia and Iran respectively, set up the systems for Sino-Russo-Indian, Sino-Russo-Pakistani, and Sino-Afghan-Pakistani trilateral dialogues, and jointly initiated with Russia the 6+1 (Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and the United States) discussion meeting on the Afghan issue. In October 2014, China successfully held the Fourth Foreign Ministers’ Conference on the Istanbul Process in Tianjin, which was led by the countries neighboring Afghanistan, which has evolved to become an important mechanism for promoting a solution to the Afghan issue. This conference was held against the background of the imminent US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, amply demonstrating China’s sense of responsibility and the constructive role it is playing in the Afghan issue, and encouraged all stakeholders to rally around their consensus and jointly support the inclusive peace and reconciliation process of Afghanistan.

China has always supported the national reconciliation process of Afghanistan by and of the Afghan people, and wants the whole Afghan nation to achieve peace and stability.

Path Selection in Sino-US Cooperation in Afghanistan

At present and within a certain period of the future, maintaining peace and stability in Afghanistan is in the common interests of both China and the United States. The chaotic situation in Afghanistan lies on China’s doorstep, and should the Afghan situation spiral out of control, the spillover threat from terrorism intensifies, China will thus be a primary and direct victim. The stability of Afghanistan also relates to the success or failure of the military withdrawal of the United States and the political legacy of Obama. Under the circumstance of US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States expects China to invest more in regional security, shoulder more international and regional responsibilities and help the United States extricate itself from its predicament in Afghanistan.

Nonetheless, China and the United States have different sets of priorities and certain divergences of interests. China wants to strengthen regional interconnections and economic integration through the Silk Road Economic Belt, link up the Asian-Pacific economic circle with the European economic circle, and promote stability and prosperity in the whole region west of it. On the other hand, the United States wishes to promote the integration of Central Asia centered on Afghanistan and South Asia through its New Silk Road plan, weaken the roles of China and Russia in the region, and seize the initiative in the process of Afghanistan’s transition and the restructuring of the surrounding areas. In comparison, China’s conception of regional planning is more open and inclusive while the US plan is more exclusionary. Therefore, on the issue of planning regional cooperation, China’s concept is more constructive and it has received welcome and support from most of the countries in the region. In this process, the regional influence of China will certainly continue to rise. Something the United States will not want to see but can do little to stop.

But compared with their divergence of interests on other regional issues, China and the United States have far more common interests in Afghanistan and there is broad room for mutual cooperation on issues concerning Afghanistan. In light of this, the two sides should control their differences, make their cake of common interests bigger and join hands to promote the stability and development of Afghanistan.

Jointly promoting the political reconciliation process of Afghanistan. Only by achieving political reconciliation, can Afghanistan acquire lasting peace and order. The ATA is deeply rooted in Afghan society and is a major force among the multiple forces of Afghanistan. How to have ATA reintegrate into Afghan society is the crux of Afghan political reconciliation and a major controversial point for all sides concerned. China and the United States should support Afghanistan’s domestic reconciliation process by and of the Afghan people and make the Afghan government and ATA sit down to negotiate. China has maintained friendly relationships with all sides and has an “all-weather strategic partnership” with Pakistan in particular, while the latter plays a special role in the Afghan political reconciliation process. The United States enjoys close ties with India. It will be conducive

to attain breakthroughs in the peace negotiations if India exercises restraint on the issue of the Afghan-Pakistani relationship. It is now a time of opportunity for the domestic political reconciliation of Afghanistan, and the Ghani government shows a positive attitude toward the peace negotiations, and while there are internal disagreements within ATA, the door has not yet closed on peace negotiations. China, the United States, and Pakistan should mobilize their respective resources and influences, head in the same direction and strive to ensure the domestic peace negotiations in Afghanistan restart at an early date and achieve some progress.

Jointly uplifting the management capability of the Afghan government. In the process of rebuilding Afghanistan, the government’s management capability and efficiency is of great importance. China and the United States have much room to play a part in that regard. China and the United States have joined hands to set up cooperative training projects and assistance to Afghanistan, such as the Sino-US project of training Afghan diplomats initiated in 2012, and the two countries will soon commence new cooperative projects training Afghan medical personnel and agricultural technicians. Cooperation on Confidence Building Measures (CBM) is an important component of the Istanbul Process and will constitute a major platform for regional interstate cooperation. The 2014 conference of Istanbul Process decided on 64 priority projects in six major domains including antiterrorism, drug control, disaster management, business and commercial investment opportunities, local infrastructure building, and education.

These would be greatly beneficial to Afghanistan’s improvement of state governance, self-reliant development, and security and defense capabilities. China and the United States can provide technical or fund supports for the projects mentioned above and encourage other regional countries to participate and help Afghanistan to realize a smooth transition. In the field of security, China and the United States can jointly help Afghanistan build and improve its security capabilities through cooperating on personnel training, equipment supply, disaster prevention and relief, and medical aid and rescue, among other things. In the future, China, the United States and Afghanistan can strengthen their intelligence and border control exchanges, carry out joint law enforcement activities, and combat trans-border threats such as

illegal immigration, human trafficking, and the smuggling of weapons and drugs. These actions will serve to elevate the security and defense capabilities of the Afghan military and police and form an interactive mechanism to effectively control cross-border criminal activities.

Compared with their divergence of interests on other regional issues, China and the United States have far more common interests in Afghanistan and there is broad room for mutual cooperation on issues concerning Afghanistan.

Achieving the docking of regional cooperation agendas of China, the United States, and Afghanistan. In its recent Ten Year Transition Development Report (2015-2024), Afghanistan designated security, infrastructure, the private economy, agricultural and rural development, implementation of good governance, and promotion of human resource development as the six priority areas for its development. Afghanistan hopes that in the next five to ten years, it will vigorously promote the construction of regional paths networks and make itself an important pivot connecting East Asia to West Asia, Central Asia to South Asia and in the construction of the Eurasian continental economic belt. In both the New Silk Road plan of the United States and the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative advocated by China, Afghanistan is a major link.

On building interconnectivity through infrastructure and telecommunications and measures for regional economic integration, China, the United States, and Afghanistan have similar priorities in launching power, oil, and gas projects connecting Afghanistan with surrounding countries, the engineering projects of cross-border highways and railways, on which the three countries can discuss feasible ways and measures for cooperating. China and the United States can proceed with promoting the interconnection, intercommunication and the energy development of Afghanistan and look for areas for integration with their respective Silk Road Economic Belt and the New Silk Road plans, and explore local projects that meet the common interests of the three sides in light of the needs for the national development of Afghanistan. They can also discuss effective financing means, and join

efforts to promote Afghanistan’s telecommunications connectivity. On the issue of financing infrastructure construction, China has proposed and established the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and set up the Silk Road Foundation, while the United States also has a big say in the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. The two countries can engage in financial cooperation on interconnectivity projects and the energy development of Afghanistan, which the Afghan government wishes to prioritize to reduce disruptive competition.

Conclusion

The political, economic and security transitions of Afghanistan are faced with many difficulties. The Sino-US relationship is also experiencing a transition in which the two countries are exploring constructing a new relationship between major powers, one characterized by non-confrontation, non-antagonism, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation. China and the United States share common interests and goals in Afghanistan and are also competing with each other for regional influence. Afghanistan is a testing ground for China and the United States to explore their pragmatic cooperation. If both sides can effectively control their differences and join hands on the issue of promoting peaceful reconstruction in Afghanistan, it will have a significant positive effect not only on peace and prosperity in the region, but also on the development of the Sino-US relationship. The cooperation between China and the United States in Afghanistan will help further the strategic mutual trust of the two countries and accumulate beneficial experience for both sides in dealing with other global or regional issues with concerted efforts. It is worth noting that Sino-US cooperation in Afghanistan cannot do without the participation and coordination from the Afghan side, and that the Sino-US cooperation in Afghanistan is actually cooperation among China, the United States, and Afghanistan, and even perhaps among more participating parties.

Li Qingyan is Assistant Research Fellow of China Institute of International Studies.