Obama favours China over India in Afghan gameplan

[oceanx]

There is no need to be very happy as a big reasoning behind the whole idea of bringing china in to the equation is also to put more pressure on pakistan through china as the world know china has biggest leverage over pakistan.

The question is...would china fall for this trap it has avoided so far??
Would agree to engage in Afghanistan in a way ,that could be determintal to pakistans longstanding goals for that region??

Dude is right - this could well be a trap. To some, it should be obvious that supporting Pak supports PRC's long-term interest in Afghanistan - one might even say Central Asia.

A PRC that can't even "peacify" Uygher-land is going to bring smiles to the Pashtuns and the Tajiks in Afghanistan?

Hope they are not that self-conceited.

 

[dbc]

Dude is right - this could well be a trap. To some, it should be obvious that supporting Pak supports PRC's long-term interest in Afghanistan - one might even say Central Asia.

China could care less for Afghanistan since she already has direct access to Central Asian goodies via pipelines, rail and road infrastructure. It is in China's interest to have Afghanistan forever mired in conflict and on the other side a belligerent Iran effectively blocks US access to Central Asia. Chinese assistance can quickly stabilize Afghanistan but the China first policy will keep her from doing so. The Obama administration must be desperate and naive to believe China is going to share Central Asia with us.

 

[oceanx]

China could care less for Afghanistan since she already has direct access to Central Asian goodies via pipelines, rail and road infrastructure. It is in China's interest to have Afghanistan forever mired in conflict and on the other side a belligerent Iran effectively blocks US access to Central Asia. Chinese assistance can quickly stabilize Afghanistan but the China first policy will keep her from doing so. The Obama administration must be desperate and naive to believe China is going to share Central Asia with us.

Perhaps a "trap" was too strong a word, Ms. Chocolate. Again, who knows how the horse-trading in Asia is going to pan out in the ensuing days.

As a lady with some obvious smarts - you should have no reason not to expect BHO to take the exact page from your book of "reverse psychology" and drop similar lines in Beijing:

"Well the Chinese are too selfish to care about anyone else anyways";
"Ain't it shameful that Amercans are fighting, Afghans are dying, and the Chinese are just digging (copper?)";
"It is 'your' Central Asia and you keep on babbling about silk this and road that while us Yanks are just guests anyway - okay guests with military bases" ​

Folks around here who wear PRC's flags on both sides of their avatar don't speak for the PRC - they have less "votes" put together than the number of toes on a double amputee. I sure as h#ll don't speak for the PRC as I have long pitched my tent far and away.

But I nevertheless find your apparent nonchalance offensive. The PRC honchos may or may not have forgotten that the fall of the Tang Dynasty began at the Battle of Talas (admittedly controversial) - way before the forefathers of the Brits and the Soviets even came into being.

Sure, the PRC wants an Afghanistan "mired in conflict" - if you insist - to "enjoy" the same kind of conflict and lawlessness as in Fergana Valley that now apparently provides sanctuary to Uyghur die-hards. That must be their plan all along.

By the same token, does the US want Mexico in turmoil, too? Perhaps it does, as the cynic would believe - otherwise, how do you keep the perpetual War on Drugs going, well, perpetual?

Forget the "turmoil", what offends me the most is the fact that there seems to be nary a care as to what the people of the region want. This whole talk of the "Great Central Asian Game" has got to be offensive to some for it speaks of the region as being passed around like some captive damsel "shared" among the "favoured" sheikhs of the day.

Now I have to confess that even this previous brainstorm of yours strikes me as "less harmful" as getting China and India directly involved somehow.

Not that I endorse your "less harmful" option at this time either. But it's possible that things are heading that way. It beats civil war with no end in sight.

Korea has a North and a South; Germany had an East and a West. "China" has a PRC and Taiwan. And the Subcontinent has India, Pakistan, BD, and Lanka.

So this may not be what Afghans really want, but perhaps the "least bad" they can get since the US simply does NOT exhibit the will.

Lady Chocolate, when there is no commitment, there is no love.

 

[Vassnti]

China could care less for Afghanistan since she already has direct access to Central Asian goodies via pipelines, rail and road infrastructure. It is in China's interest to have Afghanistan forever mired in conflict and on the other side a belligerent Iran effectively blocks US access to Central Asia. Chinese assistance can quickly stabilize Afghanistan but the China first policy will keep her from doing so. The Obama administration must be desperate and naive to believe China is going to share Central Asia with us.

DBC has summed up China's policy pretty much every where.

"We dont care how you run your country or who runs it , were here on buissness, We will pay off who we need to be left alone to mine what we want"
Though not stated there is probably a steel fist in the velvet glove that it would be unwise for a small unstable resource rich nation to piss off a country that could put 3 million troops in your capital.

Besides isnt China already in Afghanistan, i thought they had a big copper project there?

As for the theory that american is in afghanistan to put troops on China's border America has the advantage in ranged technology putting 10,000 US troops on the Chinese border would amount to handing China 10,000 hostages when a million PLA overran their positions.

 

[oceanx]

DBC has summed up China's policy pretty much every where.

"We dont care how you run your country or who runs it , were here on buissness, We will pay off who we need to be left alone to mine what we want"
Though not stated there is probably a steel fist in the velvet glove that it would be unwise for a small unstable resource rich nation to piss off a country that could put 3 million troops in your capital.

Besides isnt China already in Afghanistan, i thought they had a big copper project there?

As for the theory that american is in afghanistan to put troops on China's border America has the advantage in ranged technology putting 10,000 US troops on the Chinese border would amount to handing China 10,000 hostages when a million PLA overran their positions.

Well, all the more reasons I say to leave the "merchantilist" exactly where they are and sum together the strength, the will, and the financial wherewithal of mighty NATO to finally deliver the kind of justice that the people of Afghanistan deserve!

Maybe along the way ask China and India to chip in some cost.

All is fair in love and war - and in reconstruction.

 

[gpit]

China could care less for Afghanistan since she already has direct access to Central Asian goodies via pipelines, rail and road infrastructure. It is in China's interest to have Afghanistan forever mired in conflict and on the other side a belligerent Iran effectively blocks US access to Central Asia. Chinese assistance can quickly stabilize Afghanistan but the China first policy will keep her from doing so. The Obama administration must be desperate and naive to believe China is going to share Central Asia with us.

From China’s point of view, US/NATO’s projection of military into once abandoned Afghanistan definitely appears as strategic malice within China’s sphere.

Nonetheless, as US has been bogged down in both Iraq and Afghanistan, war tone of even the most bellicose has been dying down in the States. China seems relieved to see how the super power, being running amuck all over the place with no follow up strategy and inane social re-engineering capability, gets exhausted in backward small countries in less than a decade. Perhaps what is much to China’s happiness is that western military existence in Afghanistan actually brings in at least two windfalls that China desperately needs but was not able to achieve: suppression of Islamic extremists’ activities in that region that will eventually penetrate into China and accession to Afghanistan resources that China wants.

A completely messy Afghanistan is not in China’s interest.

Things evolve “weirdly” in the States: instead of spending time in qualifying China as a member of “axis of evil”, and paralleling it with bad guys like N. Korea, Iran, etc. this once not-our-friend, but our-enemy country looms large in Western despair as a potential helper for US/NATO. For the non-oblivious, there is no more drastic laughing-stock than this.

From China’s view, the core issue with US is Taiwan. NK nuclear, human rights, …, are all secondary in its national interest. (I’m sorry, but India issue can perhaps be barely qualified as a skin disease).

China has been harvesting from Afghanistan with minimal expenses, thanks to hard work of US/NATO. Unless China is unbelievably gullible and oblivious, why would it change a system that is working great for its benefit, except of course it could get more benefits from it?

Unless US lives up to what it has promised to the Chinese people in the Three Communiqués for the sake of building mutual trust now, and possible mutual reassurance in the future, China would not send troops, but perhaps more mining, school-build engineers/workers.

 

[ajpirzada]

china has always believed in not interferin much in any country and this has worked out for china quite well. i believe china will still follow the same strategy which in my view is the best strategy for china. any military interference in afghanistan would mean making more enemies. so better stay out of this whole picture.

 

[S-2]

I didn't see anything that hinted America, or Obama specifically, favors the PRC over India in Afghanistan.

Further, for all the chatter here, this ultimately is a bi-lateral act between the PRC and the GoA as to what and how any Chinese involvement might take form.

Finally, just as the GoA welcomes Indian developmental assistance, so too, it seems, it would look for assistance from any quarter. If America's voice opens doors for the GoA and the PRC to reach accord on some matters related to such, I can't imagine how this doesn't benefit the GoA.

As most already know, the Chinese have a copper mining project via the state-owned China Mettalurgical Group inside Logar Province-

China's Thirst For Copper Could Hold Key To Afghanistan's Future-McClatchy March 8, 2009

 

[paritosh]

I didn't see anything that hinted America, or Obama specifically, favors the PRC over India in Afghanistan.

Further, for all the chatter here, this ultimately is a bi-lateral act between the PRC and the GoA as to what and how any Chinese involvement might take form.

Finally, just as the GoA welcomes Indian developmental assistance, so too, it seems, it would look for assistance from any quarter. If America's voice opens doors for the GoA and the PRC to reach accord on some matters related to such, I can't imagine how this doesn't benefit the GoA.

As most already know, the Chinese have a copper mining project via the state-owned China Mettalurgical Group inside Logar Province-

China's Thirst For Copper Could Hold Key To Afghanistan's Future-McClatchy March 8, 2009

the recent obama-jintao dialogues were also aimed at the Indo-Pak peace sustainability or creating grounds for it...I don't think the GoI would appreciate this move too much...Afghanistan-Pakistan is chiefly an American matter to discuss...but we'd not want China our arch-rival and the all-weather friend of Pakistan to forge deals with the Americans under Obama...about how the GoI deals with the GoP...as we need to have a leverage..and we don't see any...
This goes way beyond the coppermines in Afghanistan..