“We will support the Afghan government in realizing reconciliation with various political factions including the Taliban,” Mr. Wang told reporters in Islamabad, according to Reuters.
That follows on other initial attempts China has made to feel out the political landscape there. Late last year, two Afghan Taliban officials traveled with Pakistani officials to Beijing to discuss a potential peace process. In London in December, China, the United States and Afghanistan held a first trilateral meeting to discuss the Afghan future. Present at the meeting was Sun Yuxi, China’s special envoy to Afghanistan.
Any sign of China’s potentially becoming a regional peacemaker is welcome news for the Obama administration, which has supported political reconciliation in Afghanistan. At the center of promoting United States-China dialogue on Afghanistan is Barnett Rubin, a veteran Afghanistan scholar who served for four and a half years as a senior adviser to the American government’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was hired for that position in 2009 by Richard C. Holbrooke, the first special envoy, and worked with two of Mr. Holbrooke’s successors after his death in 2010. Since the summer of 2012, Mr. Rubin, who is also part of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, has helped to organize seven meetings on Afghanistan that make up a “track two” dialogue between American and Chinese parties.
He recently shared his thoughts with The New York Times on China’s growing engagement with Afghan politics, what the United States would like to see result from that relationship and China’s concerns over rising Uighur militancy along its western frontier.
As the United States draws down its combat troops in Afghanistan, what kind of role would it like to see China play in the country?
While the U.S. is ending its combat role in Afghanistan, we and our allies have pledged a continuing commitment to Afghanistan for at least a decade. So there is no question of China filling any “vacuum” left by the U.S., as people sometimes say. Rather there is a need for China to become a partner of the U.S. in its extensive noncombat roles.
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