The editor-in-chief of the Global Times, a Chinese Communist Celebration propaganda newspaper, published a commentary Monday in defense of the Afghan Taliban, insisting it is not a terrorist group and antagonizing it is of “no advantage to China at all.”
Editor-in-Chief Hu Xijin consistently declared the United States does rule out the Taliban a terrorist group, noting just the Pakistani Taliban, not the Afghan Taliban, appears on the State Department’s list of designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Hu significantly omits that the Workplace of the Director of National Intelligence does refer to the Afghan Taliban as a terrorist company, describing it more specifically as a critical ally to al-Qaeda, the jihadist group responsible for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland.
The Afghan Taliban engaged in peace talks with the United States for much of 2020 under previous President Donald Trump, concluding in an agreement that would have seen America pull troops out of Afghanistan on Might 1, 2021, ending the two-decade-old Afghan War. President Joe Biden broke the agreement, extending the due date first to September 11, then to August 31. The Taliban thought about Biden’s move a violation of the arrangement and a thumbs-up not to keep its own pledges, resulting in a revitalized project versus the legitimate government of Afghanistan. International observers believe the Taliban currently manages the majority of Afghanistan and might soon, after the withdrawal of U.S. troops ends, topple the Afghan government.
In anticipation of a complete return to power by the Taliban, the Communist Party of China– extremely interested in turning Afghanistan into a “Belt and Roadway” country and indebting it with needless, high-interest loans for infrastructure jobs– has actually taken part in numerous rounds of talks with the Taliban and safeguarded it on the world stage. The Taliban, in turn, has stopped working to condemn China for its ongoing genocide of Muslim ethnic minorities in its west, in spite of being a Sunni Muslim company.
Hu’s column in the Global Times appeared intended to relax observers worried that China’s backing would embolden the Taliban to engage in more jihad, rather than in lucrative company with Beijing.
“The Afghan government and the Taliban have both expressed their friendly mindset toward China. This is definitely helpful for China,” Hu composed. “Yet I saw some people have described the Taliban as an opponent of China’s national interests and called for the antagonism of China versus the group. Such a claim is psychological, ignorant and deeply out of place in my viewpoint.”
“Some Chinese netizens do not comprehend Afghanistan. They have actually put labels on the Taliban and showed abhorrence versus it because of the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha, and the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which as soon as had activities on Taliban’s domain,” Hu composed. ETIM is a non-existent Uyghur jihadist group that China uses as its reason to maltreat Uyghurs, putting them in prisoner-of-war camp for “re-education” to prevent their recruitment by ETIM. The United States government confirmed last year that no proof suggests a single member of ETIM exists at the minute. Chinese nationals– not Uyghurs, however members of the ethnic Han bulk of China– were jailed last year obviously involved in a plot to produce and construct a fake ETIM cell in Kabul.
Hu declared in his piece that he could confirm that no relationship exists between the fabricated ETIM group and the Taliban.
“The Taliban tends to go to extremes on religious matters and shares values with lots of terrorist groups. To what level will their shared values lead to genuine acts needs an objective evaluation,” Hu included.
The state propagandist claimed two times that Washington does not consider the Taliban a terrorist company and cautioned, “if China were to turn against the Taliban at this moment, it would be tantamount to digging a diplomatic trap by itself” because Trump engaged in peace talks with the group.
“The circumstance around Afghanistan is rather complicated, but China clearly understands what its nationwide interests are. We should not develop opponents for ourselves at this crunch time,” Hu concluded. “In specific, we ought to not easily turn down the goodwill from the Taliban, which is of excellent significance to our putting in impact in Afghanistan and keeping stability in Xinjiang.”
Xinjiang is the Chinese Han name for East Turkestan, the homeland of the Uyghur individuals.
The “goodwill” Hu described was available in the form of favorable words for Beijing from Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen in an interview with the South China Morning Post‘s weekly magazine recently.
“We have been to China lot of times and we have good relations with them,” Shaheen stated. “China is a friendly country that we welcome for restoration and establishing Afghanistan.”
The Taliban spokesperson added that the group sought Chinese financial investment in Afghanistan “as soon as possible.”
Afghanistan has one of the world’s wealthiest untapped reserves of rare-earth metals, important to the development of high technology like batteries for cellphones and other internet-capable items. Access to that market would present a benefit to China’s growing tech market.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry echoed Hu’s call to relationship with the Taliban on Monday, stressing the difference between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban groups.
“The Afghan Taliban is a self-styled political and military organization which honestly mentions that it restricts any company or person from making the most of Afghanistan’s territory to threaten other nations,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian informed reporters throughout the day-to-day press instruction. “It has kept discussion and contact with the Afghan federal government and the global neighborhood recently.”
“Terrorism is a common opponent of humanity. China stands all set to deal with the worldwide neighborhood to step up anti-terrorism cooperation and support world peace and serenity,” Zhao concluded.