Afghanistan deadline

[Rockstar]

Central Asian jihadists have been flexing their muscle, anti-China jihadists have attacked Chinese personal in Pakistan, more regional violence is extremely plausible — the threat is ongoing, and we are just talking about an escalation from this point onwards,” Mir said. The collapse of the Afghan republic following the U.S. departure would have regional significance like the post-9/11 invasion, or the withdrawal of Soviet troops and fall of the communist regime they’d backed. “This is a seismic shift that will change politics in this part of the world in ways” hard to foresee.

Expect the immediate danger to be regional — in South and Central Asia — as geography and capability limit the initial damage. Chinese interests in Pakistan have already taken a hit. In April, a car bomb exploded at a luxury hotel hosting Beijing’s ambassador in Quetta, not far from Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan. The attack was claimed by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or the Pakistani Taliban, a loosely organized terrorist group with ties to al-Qaeda, based along the vast Afghan-Pakistan border.

Last month, a bomb blast on a bus traveling to a dam and hydro-electric project in Dasu, near the Pakistan border with China, killed 12 people, including nine Chinese citizens. No one has claimed responsibility, but Beijing was so concerned that it hosted Taliban representatives for a meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi. At stake is $60 billion in projects in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a crucial part of President Xi Jinping’s wider Belt and Road Initiative, along with significant Chinese mining interests inside Afghanistan.

While this wasn’t the Taliban’s first visit to China, the seniority of the Chinese representatives was unprecedented, as was the very public message that Beijing recognizes the group as a legitimate political force, Yun Sun, the Stimson Center think tank’s China program director, noted last week in an essay on the national security platform, War on the Rocks. After posing for photographs with the group’s co-founder and deputy leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Wang described the Taliban as “a crucial military and political force in Afghanistan that is expected to play an important role in the peace, reconciliation, and reconstruction process of the country.”

What Beijing wants in return is for the Taliban to live up to a commitment to sever all ties with terrorist organizations, including the TTP and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (an outfit Beijing blames for unrest in its Xinjiang region that Washington removed from its list of terror groups in October after finding there was no credible evidence it continues to exist.) Any further attacks on Chinese nationals working in South Asia, whether claimed by the Taliban or others operating with its blessing, will no doubt impact future ties, though it’s unclear what China would do in retaliation.

By taking the Taliban off our terrorist watch list. It allows us to look upon them as freedom fighters and fund and equip them so they can be a thorn in China’s side.