One of the major justifications offered by the Biden Administration for the abdication of its duty in Afghanistan is that our global adversaries want to see us bogged down specifically in this Southern Asian country. They don’t want us to leave; they want us to forever funnel billions of dollars into a hopeless cause to stabilize a lawless country.* Even more, leaving Afghanistan allows us to shift our focus to Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
By this logic, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing should be frightened or at least concerned with the US withdrawal. After all, the small deployment of 2,500 American troops there helped maintain regional stability at no cost to China.
However, this is not what we are witnessing, and it should be obvious. China is more than pleased to see the United States abandon an ally. And while the CCP has no love for the Taliban, it has no compunction about doing business with them.
And the Taliban are not exactly keen on starting a conflict with China. They are fully aware that Beijing will not be constrained by concerns for human rights or an antiwar movement within its borders. Should the CCP decide the Taliban is an enemy, they would crush them with no concern for rebuilding the country. Fully aware of this, the Taliban is now reaching out to China. And China, seeing an opportunity to enlarge its presence in the region, has reciprocated.
“Beijing sees Afghanistan in part through the lens of its Belt and Road Initiative,” writes Azeem Ibrahim in Foreign Policy. “China has already built extensive transportation infrastructure through the Central Asian countries north of Afghanistan and continues to build at pace both there and in Pakistan."
For the CCP, Afghanistan is of interest only in terms of its proximity to Chinese routes to economic expansion and eventually regional domination. Pakistan already has “extensive contact” with Chinese military and intelligence establishments, and Beijing is likely to welcome similar cooperation with any incoming Afghan government that no longer considers itself an ally of the United States.
China has also invested in a copper mine just outside of Kabul, as well as oil fields to the north. The next step is to acquire rights to the country’s extensive cache of rare earth minerals estimated to be worth as much as $3 trillion.† For their part, the Taliban has already signaled that they welcome Chinese investment.
Washington no longer sees the South Asian region as strategically important. Attention is being shifted to the Indo-Pacific, specifically Taiwan and the South China Sea. From a realpolitik perspective, the withdrawal from Afghanistan may seem appropriate in light of current geopolitical concerns. But it may only seem that way. For the method and haste of this withdrawal has sent another signal to American adversaries. One of fecklessness and weakness.
The Global Times, a state media propaganda outfit directly run by the CCP, recently ran an editorial that serves as a warning to Taiwan.
From what happened in Afghanistan, Taiwan should perceive that once a war breaks out in the Straits, the island's defense will collapse in hours and the US military won't come to help. As a result, the DPP [Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan] authorities will quickly surrender, while some high-level officials may flee by plane.
Notice this message reads “once a war breaks out” not “if.” The debacle in Afghanistan may be a direct invitation for a Chinese invasion and eventual annexation of Taiwan, which many analysts believe could occur by 2027. Such an invasion could include the mobilization of 2 million Chinese troops and 500,000 Taiwanese soldiers.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told Congress that while China is seeking the capability to invade Taiwan, he doesn’t believe that they will. “I do disagree with that. I see no evidence of that actual intent or decision-making. What I’m talking about is capability.” This is the same general who now says he saw no intelligence predicting a Taliban rout of Afghanistan in 11 days. Biden has said he would “respond” if China attempts an invasion, but this rings hollow in light of his “response” to Afghanistan’s fall. And the CCP may very well decide not to wait for Biden’s successor. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has already dispatched warships and fighter jets to conduct joint live-fire-exercises near Taiwan. And the Chinese Foreign Ministry has sent a warning to Japan not to engage in any “security talks” with China’s “Taiwan region.”
The South-Central Asian region where Afghanistan is located is not strategically unimportant. This is an area contested by major geopolitical powers. India and China are constantly challenging each other for territorial control, and shooting skirmishes have taken place. Pakistan and India are two nuclear powers in a state of perpetual conflict. Russia has interests in the area. An American military presence in the region arguably served as an effective deterrence to would be aggressors.
But now Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is already cultivating friendly relationships with some of America’s worst enemies, including its own former enemy Iran. Biden’s precipitous withdrawal has created a convergence of interests between multiple regional adversaries of the United States.
As posed in a New York Post op-ed, “[T]he US withdrawal plays clumsily into China’s hand. If the main purpose of the withdrawal is to redirect US energies towards China’s expansionist aims, it is unclear how ceding territory to China’s orbit forwards that objective.”
And yes perception matters. There is nothing more dangerous than for a stronger power to send the perception that can be interpreted as weakness by a weaker adversary.‡ This is not how wars end. This is how wars begin. The threat of a Chinese assault on Taiwan is growing by the day. And in all certainty the United States will one day be forced to return to Afghanistan, but it will not be at a time of our choosing.
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* “There is nothing that our strategic competitors would like more than to see us bogged down and mired in Afghanistan for another five, ten, twenty years. That is not in the national interest.” — Secretary of State Antony Blinken
“Our true strategic competitors, China and Russia, would love nothing more than the United States to continue to funnel billions of dollars and resources and attention into stabilizing Afghanistan indefinitely.” — President Joe Biden
† CNBC reports: “China has dominated the rare earths market globally and threatened to cut off supplies to the U.S. during the trade war in 2019."
‡ See Victor Davis Hanson, “This Is No Time to Stumble,” Hoover Digest No. 3 (Summer 2021) pp. 131–137; paraphrased remark found on p. 134
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