foir_3880

FOI-R--3880--SE
on anti-terror activities has been a support for the domestic Chinese approach
towards the XUAR. The importance China and the other SCO members place on
the terrorist threat is seen in the establishment in 2004 of the Regional Antiterrorist
Centre (RATS) in Tashkent. It is one of but two permanent bodies of the
SCO, the other being the secretariat in Beijing. Terrorism was not the only
reason for forming the SCO, but may from the Chinese perspective have been
more important than appreciated in the West. That China, despite the preference
for using bilateral relationships or the UN, has chosen to invest in a multilateral
security agreement with Russia and Central Asian partners underlines that its
view on its neighbours to the west differs from its views on other areas.
AFGHANISTAN AND THE GREATER GEOSTRATEGIC GAME IN
THE CHINESE CALCULUS
To policy makers in Beijing Afghanistan is a distant neighbour that mostly has
had little influence on Chinese foreign policy, its security or its economy. The
short border has only one crossing point, a trail across the Wakhjir pass (4900
metres above sea level) leading west into the narrow, long and rugged valley of
Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor. Geography limits interaction and the physical
threats emanating directly from Afghanistan (Wong, 2010). Yet the spread of
ideology has no respect for borders and the risk that political and religious
extremism will take root has been a concern for the government in Beijing.
China sees the American presence in Afghanistan as a mixed blessing. The
foreign forces have on the one hand addressed a key Chinese concern, the
Islamist extremism of al Qaeda. On the other hand the massive Western
deployment runs counter to a central policy tenet of Beijing, the non-interference
in other countries internal affairs policy (Xinhua, 2013:b). The Afghan war has
also run parallel to a general geostrategic shift towards the Western Pacific
during the 2000’s, a shift closely linked to the international debate about the rise
of China. Western suspicion and, in the Beijing analysis, politico-military
overreactions have risked isolating and encircling China militarily. The US
foothold in Afghanistan and Central Asia can be and have been viewed by many
analysts in China as the westernmost region where an encirclement strategy is
being played out. This was made clear when the SCO members including China
at the organization’s 2005 summit called on the US to set a timetable for leaving
Central Asia (Hu Qihua, 2005).
Recent statements suggest a change in the Chinese calculus on the US presence
in Afghanistan and the wider Central Asia. It is becoming clearer even to
cautious military analysts in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that the US
does not intend to remain with a significant number of troops in the region.
Beijing now sees much less of a risk, and is less concerned that the US is trying
to build a military stepping stone against China in Afghanistan and Central Asia.
This view is seen in the Chinese support for the US-Afghanistan Bilateral
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