How Afghanistan Has Become Another Notch in China’s Belt

Our disastrous withdrawal paved the way for a partnership between the Taliban and Xi Jinping’s regime.

By
25
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang meets with Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in Islamabad, Pakistan, May 6, 2023. (Photo by Jiang Chao/Xinhua/Getty Images)

More than a year after the Biden administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, it’s now becoming clear who is poised to be the big winner of America’s longest war, besides the Taliban. 

It’s China.  

Last week Beijing took the decisive steps that will make the Taliban its strategic partner in Xi Jinping’s push for global hegemony, via the vast China-led global infrastructure project known as the Belt and Road Initiative.

China’s impending success, and America’s abject failure, in Afghanistan is both infuriating and enlightening. It should force us to take a hard look at how America conducts itself with friends and enemies alike, especially when it comes to how we use our military force. 

Start a Free Trial
Get every newsletter and all of The Dispatch. Support quality, fact-based journalism. Get Started ALREADY HAVE AN ACCOUNT? SIGN IN
25
By
Comments (25)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Good article

    Collapse
  2. OldBoomer

    Please list ALL the outsiders who benefitted from dealing with Afghanistan through the past centuries, starting with Alexander the Great.

    Take your time.....

    Collapse
    1. SkyDoc

      The Mongols did alright for a little over a century. Just slaughter the inhabitants by the thousands and they won't give you trouble.

      Collapse
  3. Andrew L

    So weird how they didn't want to partner with the country that spent 2 decades bombing their hospitals. Unlucky.

    Collapse
  4. R. James

    Much to do about nothing. Gwadar is about as useless to China as anything in the Arabian Gulf if the Strait of Malacca is closed to them. And if the PRC finds itself in a predicament where the Strait of Malacca is closed to its tankers, then I highly doubt those tankers are going to make it from the Arabian Gulf to Gwadar anyway. And an overland route especially through Pakistan, Afghanistan and Xinjiang could not fuel China's demand for oil by itself, especially if the right warlord's palms are greased to ensure that corridor is as treacherous as possible. Just sayin'.

    Collapse
  5. Pohl

    A rather breathless reaction to Chinese sales brochures. I fully expect a regional hegemon to be better at exploiting resources with some easy infrastructure enticements. Good luck to China’s partners. But we do need to pursue our version, which should have less strings attached and is thankfully not just one maleficent government partnering with another. That’s our advantage. I do agree with the assessment of our recent military misadventures, though. Ever since Bush announced our nation-building aims in the region, my cringe reflex has been on high alert.

    Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    DougAz

    Sorry Arthur but you deliberately left out multiple points. Your essay is a sad false misrepresentation.

    A. Bush-Cheney and the DoD utterly failed to go to Afghanistan. The reality is Bush-Cheney only had 12,000 to 15k troops in Afghanistan after 9/11. For years the Iraq invasion debacle too the focus off the real authentic enemy - Afghanistan. All of it
    B. FDR using slow ships had over 250,000 Americans fighting on 3 continents against Japan and Germany in 18 months. Bush-Cheney and the Defense Department were a cowardly, incompetent disgrace by comparison.
    C. We got nothing from Iraq and Afghanistan for the 250,000 dead civilians. And $6 Trillion wasted.
    D. Obama had the right focus - kill Osama bin Laden and his team did achieved the right objective where Bush-Cheney failed
    E. Afghanistan is not a nation. It has no organizing core philosophy. It's nothing but a collection of medieval tribes.
    F. You look at the Taliban. But the reality you know and left out. The Afghans are cowards. They killed Americans. They did not ever fight for their women. Miserable nation. Totally opposite in Ukraine where they are a nation with a long culture and fight for their people.

    You are shameful for saying the withdrawal from Afghanistan. What did you expect ? Roses on the way out? The Taliban defeated us. They won. They won and owned the majority of the hearts and minds of the Afghans.

    This conservative rewrite of actual events is a shame. People like you are the reason we invaded an innocent nation, Iraq. People like you are why Bush-Cheney immorally justified torture.

    You and your warrior Cons are so wrong, so blind, you don't get how you damaged America. We took the Shining City on a Hill and pushed over.

    I'm fine with China working the Taliban. They'll do a better job because they have so much in common.

    Collapse
  7. Avatar photo
    Taylor L

    I wish our leaders had accurately described our efforts in Afghanistan for the last 15 years as an international investment in the national transition from a theocratic terrorist state to one where, at the very least, girls were allowed to go to school. I, for one, would have had a very different knee-jerk response to thinking about our involvement there than I did when it was framed as a continuation of the war that started while I was in high school.

    I'm glad the Dispatch is here to give sober, thoughtful politicians a chance to make their cases for what is in the national interest; like in the interviews with Senators Cassidy, and Romney, and former Senator Sasse. More of that, please. If press coverage is oxygen and grassroots supporters are kindling, results-oriented politicians need places like the Dispatch to play a part in the equation. The occasional op-ed in the WSJ doesn't do enough to highlight the efforts of the lawmakers who actually want to accomplish something. I love Uphill and the rest of the offerings here but I would pay double for a podcast and/or newsletter dedicated to what the "Problem-Solvers Caucus" is up to or what any bipartisan working group is considering as a solution to the nation's largest problems: immigration, debt, entitlements, China, healthcare, etc. etc. etc.

    Anyway, thanks for all the great reporting and coverage you already provide. And for giving your members a place to vent and wishcast.

    Collapse
  8. Zvikes

    I say they're welcome to it. If they can turn that country into something where investments actually pay off and resources can leveraged, good. If they can increase the amount of lithium available globally, awesome, we'll still benefit. And if they can't, well then it's their wasted investments, not ours.

    Collapse
    1. Walter.L.Appling

      Unless they have seriously misjudged, the Chinese will benefit from extracting Afghanistan’s minerals. The Taliban leadership will benefit. Afghanistan itself will not benefit. But it will remain in the Chinese hegemon.

      Collapse
      1. R. James

        As with anything to do with Afghanistan, the "extracting" part will be much more difficult than it appears on paper. I predict lots of CCP resources will be spent into a black hole from which little will be extracted.

        Collapse
        1. Walter.L.Appling

          I hope so. But I wouldn’t underestimate them. Thanks to the USGS, they know which minerals are where. The only real threat that I can see is possible terrorist attacks from Islamic State actors. It’s in the interest of the Taliban to provide security. Even the Islamic State can probably be bought off. No more Northern Alliance, no more warlords, thanks to the Taliban. Pakistan has no reason to interfere.
          Plus, all of Central Asia is moving into China’s primary influence. It’s just the pragmatic thing to do, on multiple levels.

          Collapse
  9. Avatar photo
    Cdombek

    Great article. You only failed to mention that almost nothing that China builds as part of the Belt and Road initiative is free. They saddle these countries with debt and largely build the infrastructure with Chinese, not local labor.

    Collapse
  10. Avatar photo
    Pat Riot

    Good article, but why the gratuitous partisan sniping? The withdrawal from Afghanistan was started by Trump, and only a massive surge in the other direction could have kept us there after Trump essentially told the Afghan army their days were numbered by coddling the Taliban. All Biden did was minimize the damage that Trump had started by acting as quickly as possible.

    But all Trump did in this case was answer the will of the overwhelming majority of Americans who wanted, stupidly, out of Afghanistan regardless of the consequences. The problem is not how we withdrew, it's that we withdrew, which was a moral, military and strategic mistake.

    Collapse
    1. Pohl

      I’m curious why you think a few bases in that landlocked country would be such a valuable addition to our global collection. I’d say we’re well situated in that department. Where else in the world would you like to prop up governments so we can have more bases, surely the least cost-effective way of doing so? For the money dumped into Afghanistan, we could practically double the number of ships in the Fifth and Seventh Fleets. Your best argument is if we could have kept Bagram, say, while abandoning or minimizing the nation-building absurdities and expenses. But would our small bootprint be enough of a stabilizing presence? Would Bagram even be enough to play Whac-A-Mole with terrorists if it could turn its back on Kabul for a second? What lofty role do you see for it there?

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        Pat Riot

        I never said we should have only kept Bagram, which is a "General Twitter" commentary, not mine. Leaving just Bagram there was not militarily viable. Our choices were to either stay as we were or leave like we did. There was no in between choice.

        Regardless, we should never have gone into Afghanistan in the first place, but once we did, we were morally and strategically obligated to stay. Morally, because what we have done to the Afghans by leaving after being there is morally reprehensible, and strategically, for the reasons this article talks about.

        Collapse
        1. Pohl

          That’s why I allowed you may have envisioned “bases,” not just Bagram. I don’t agree Afghanistan was a total mistake in the initial years. I also am not sure what strategic reasons you allude to in this article.

          Collapse
          1. Avatar photo
            Pat Riot

            You don't? Start with the title of the article: pulling out of Afghanistan has emboldened our enemies. Besides that, the next time we need people in a country like Afghanistan to help us, they will know that partnering with American means you get screwed over, so they won't do it.

            I was certainly part of the overwhelming majority of Americans who thought going into Afghanistan was the right thing to do at the time, but nobody back then understood that the committed was, morally speaking, forever. We should never again go into a country like that unless we're prepared to make it all but another US state.

            Collapse