China Considers Larger Role in Afghanistan Peace Process - nytimes

One reason for China’s engagement is that a stable Afghanistan could become a critical transportation hub and market for Chinese goods.

BEIJING — As a bloody offensive by the Taliban spreads in Afghanistan and with American combat operations there officially ended, anxious Chinese leaders find themselves under pressure to take a more active role in the long-stalled peace process, according to scholars and current and former diplomats.

For observers of Chinese diplomacy, that kind of commitment is surprising since China often tries to take a hands-off approach in regions and nations at war.

“The big backdrop is that the United States will have withdrawn most of its troops from Afghanistan with the antiterrorism mission unfinished, which is leaving the country a mess,” said Du Youkang, who worked in Islamabad, Pakistan, as a diplomat and is now the director of the South Asia Studies Center at Fudan University in Shanghai. “Bombings have never stopped, even in the capital.Afghanistan shares a border with China, so in this case China must get involved to promote the talks and to secure the stability in the region.”

Yet if China is to play a productive role in peace talks with the Taliban, the officials and scholars say, it will have to convince its ally Pakistan that an Afghanistan at peace and engaged politically and economically with all regional powers, including India, is in Pakistan’s interests. - Read More at the NYT

China Considers Larger Role in Afghanistan Peace Process

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