Can Beijing buy the Taliban?
28th October 2021
China is seeking a grand bargain from the Taliban: eliminate the groups Beijing says are stirring up trouble among its Muslim Uighurs in exchange for massive aid to rebuild Afghanistan. It sounds enticing for both sides as they sit down in Doha this week, but there are numerous questions about whether either can deliver, and a good chance that China will become the next imperial power sucked into the “graveyard of empires.”
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy prime minister, and Wang Li, China’s foreign minister, are reportedly meeting in the capital of Qatar just as the Taliban faces a growing number of attacks from ISIS-K, a provincial affiliate of Islamic State. Baradar is insisting that the security situation is “under control.”
Beijing gleefully welcomed America’s chaotic retreat from Afghanistan and the Taliban seizure of power, but that has quickly been replaced by trepidation at the threat of instability on its doorstep. The humbling of the United States in Afghanistan fitted nicely into the Chinese narrative of American decline and enabled Beijing to pile pressure on Taiwan, depicting Washington as an unreliable ally.
Probably not, but I’m sure they could be rented at reasonable rates.