AFGHANISTAN A CHINESE HOT POTATO

 

“The year 2022, the Year of the Water Tiger, in the Chinese Zodiac is credited with powerful action on the water and harbinger of poor luck from the direction of South West, the very two areas where it is currently involved in its two major geopolitical faceoffs – with the US and its allies in the turbulent waters of South China Sea (SCS) and Taiwan, and with India to its South West. To add to the psychological woes emanating from its own Zodiac lore, Afghanistan the hot potato its left holding, and the energy rich West Asia, the perceived panacea to its energy woes, also lie to its South West!”

 

Backdrop

Chinese leadership has all the reasons to look at 2022 with apprehension and uncertainty, with attendant potential of inviting the ignominy of an internally enforced regime change. In the economic field, Government debt is at an all-time high, its private sector which employs 80% of its total workforce and accounts for 60% of its GDP is straitjacketed by obtrusive Government scrutiny, its economic boom towns are increasingly turning ghost towns exacerbating dangerous social rifts, and the adverse demographics are only adding to the economic gloom.

Geopolitically too China is being dragged down by its premature challenge to US global supremacy as it enters 2022, a victim of the success of its own propaganda campaign which consistently showcased a larger than life image of itself on the world stage. It failed to grasp the contrast of the time tested US geopolitical ploy in maintaining its global supremacy. US the dominant super power, confident of its comprehensive national power, takes duplicitous steps to propagate its increasing vulnerability from a rising challenger, inducing the latter to prematurely enter the contest. USSR and Iraq are testimony to this US ploy.

The Afghanistan Hot Potato

Afghanistan is fast turning out to be the proverbial hot potato for China to hold. The Taliban Government, primarily comprises Pashtun interests, excluding other ethnic interests. In the no holds barred fratricidal strife, that Afghan polity is known for, and where financial gains are the only basis of securing allegiance, the region shall remain destabilised, and inimical to fulfil long term Chinese goals.

China’s biggest insecurity lies in its colossal energy needs. The extended maritime trade link from the Gulf region is highly vulnerable to interdiction, as is its China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Here China and Russia view each other as allies in the present, but a threat in the long term. China's belligerence against US and NATO assists Russia in diverting geopolitical pressure from its area of interest, thereby gaining breathing space to shape it's boundary contours more favourably. But a dominant China would eye to annex Siberian mineral resources, and being closer to home, a more dangerous threat to Russia in the long term. Russia is, therefore, highly unlikely to engage in open conflict in support of China, against US. China therefore looks at Afghanistan, through its Wakhan Corridor, for developing an alternative and secure land route to the Gulf for energy supplies.

Another critical focus for China within Afghanistan is its Islamist regime, with a potential for spoiling the internal security environment in the restive Muslim Uighur populated Xinjiang province of China. The affinity for fellow Muslim Uighurs coupled with the extremist Taliban ideology can be a heady cocktail which can inflame the sensitive Xinjiang region with deep side effects even in Tibet.

Here two recent news about Afghanistan are of interest. First, Russia and China have enabled leeway for Afghanistan to receive humanitarian aid, without restrictive oversight, at the UNSC, with policy review after a year. This showcases Chinese and Russian concern with the increasing destabilisation of their near neighbourhood. Propping up the Taliban regime financially is now perforce their priority to avoid a degraded security environment, impacting their own internal security. 

Second, a specific day in a week, Thursday, has been earmarked in Afghanistan for processing passports only for Taliban members. US, NATO and allied countries will now be faced with a security dilemma on issue of visa to extricate their erstwhile Afghan supporters, as the whole process will likely get inextricably interlinked with Taliban attempts to push through own covert operatives into West bloc countries. The West is likely to push back by continuing to withhold recognition of Taliban regime, tightening of travel & trade restrictions, and restricting international monetary support, leading to overall financial destabilisation of Afghanistan. 

This will entail greater destabilisation of the region, to the detriment of Chinese and Russian security concerns, and surely portend a dark winter ahead for the people of Afghanistan.

Impact on China

“The quest for dominance drives commerce, so to discern the future follow the trade. Harmonised growth of power and commerce presage stability, imbalance in the two shall portend strife.”

-          ‘‘Elephant On The High Himalayas’’

The real power play by US and its allies lies in the field of economic strangulation of China, a la erstwhile USSR. Chinese belligerence will increase as its trade and economy flounders. 

Taiwan is slowly but inexorably slipping out of China's grasp. A trap waiting to be closed as and when a last ditch gamble is made by a desperate Beijing regime. Attempts by China to impose military solution to integrate Taiwan under sovereignty of mainland China, will provide ‘causus bellicus’ to the US to impose crippling economic sanctions including on sources of energy supply. In 1942, Japan, foreseeing somewhat similar geopolitical constraints, had opted for taking the calculated risk of going for war against US, and failed.

China is also saddled with two financial albatross around its neck, Pakistan and Afghanistan, countries critical for its geostrategic needs, that it needs to prop up financially. With the two countries, China's passport to a secure access to critical energy resources, getting bogged down in a deteriorating security quagmire, China has got entangled between the Elephant at its backdoor, the Eagle hovering at its main gate and a patient 'friendly' Bear waiting in the background. A quagmire of its own making.

Actions by India

It's a very complex scenario and India is sitting easy, moving on constructive lines. 

The main field of entanglement in this geopolitical play is in the economic and commercial sphere. That's where the real nightmare of China is coming true. Here Indian push in manufacturing and infrastructure development is being aided by Japan and tacitly by US, and it's at the cost of China. 

On the energy security front India's push for diversifying its long term energy needs away from petrochemicals to alternate energy sources is already well underway. 

In the military domain Pakistan, a junior ally of China, has been placed under adequate financial straitjacket by US dominated international financial agencies, where it's participation in a so called two front war against India, in collaboration with China, will propel it's economic collapse. It's a non-option in my understanding. 

Afghanistan is not a threat to India. Any terror influx from Afghanistan can materialise through Pakistan only. So it needs to address such a threat, as and when it emerges, also through Pakistan! 

India at this juncture needs to focus on holding maximum possible Chinese strategic resources along the Karakoram/Himalayas, which it's doing admirably, without entering into an open conflict.

China is known to not engage in direct military battle unless victory is assured. India has been able to calibrate it's defense potential along the Northern borders to the point where China is uncertain about the outcome of a military conflict with India. Continued confrontational deployment along the mutual borders is more detrimental to China in the long run.

India's push towards self-reliance in strategic equipment is also coming along none too soon. As the technology is advancing, the danger of embedded malware in futuristic weapons is now a reality. 

India's inroads into the geopolitical space in West Asia is already enabling it to push for alternate access trade corridor to Central Asia through the Mediterranean - UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Greece... 

So India should avoid undertaking an 'Ashvamedha Yagna' along its Northern borders - that is hold its horses so to say; strengthen its strategic infrastructure; engage with all the geostrategic players in the great game, but keep its powder dry!!! 

The best way to engage with China is to be prepared for a war, and it's cheaper too in the long run!!!