China has courted the Taliban for years

On the next day after Kabul fell to the Taliban, Chinese state media began capitalizing on the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan to taunt Taiwan, arguing that the island could face the same fate as Afghanistan and be “abandoned” by the US, even asserting that “Afghanistan today, Taiwan tomorrow.”

The quick responses of the Chinese propaganda reveals that whatever the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is doing to Afghanistan and Taiwan is covered by the same playbook. In other words, China’s Afghanistan policy and Taiwan policy are outlined under the umbrella of the CCP’s grand strategy. The lesson which the democracies must learn is that whatever happens in Afghanistan, the CCP is plotting something towards Taiwan accordingly.

Both Afghanistan and Taiwan are significant for the CCP, as both are the exits of the very two wings of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which are the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” and the “Silk Road Economic Belt.” To maximise the BRI’s prospects of success, the CCP has been hedge betting, putting its bets on both Afghanistan and Taiwan to guarantee a win, or wishfully a double-win for the BRI. To achieve that goal, China has been trying to interfere in Afghanistan via the Taliban, and in Taiwan via the pro-Chinese camps on the island.

China allegedly began keeping in touch with the Taliban in 2001, according to Li Qingyan, the associate research fellow of China Institute of International Studies. Li told The Paper (澎湃新闻), which is owned by the Communist Party of China Shanghai Municipal Committee, that China had expected the chaos in Afghanistan following the US military withdrawal. Li’s comment illuminates that the CCP have been long waiting for its turn to interfere with Afghanistan.

The chaos is predictable because the US military withdrawal inevitably leads to a power vacuum in Afghanistan, which China is keen to fill. That was why the CCP had been secretly meeting with the Taliban. However, the CCP has no longer kept it secret since 2016.

The Chinese Government's mouthpiece the Global Times (Huanqiu, 環球網) published an editorial on 2nd August 2016 admitting that the Chinese government would not deny having secret meetings with the Taliban. The timing of the editorial being released is worth noting. It was just 2 months after the new leaderships of the Taliban and Taiwan were formed.

Ex-Taliban chief Akhtar Mohammad Mansour was killed in a US drone strike on 21 May 2016. Days after the incident, Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada became the new New Taliban chief. The change of leadership was apparently an opening for the CCP to sway the Taliban into being closer to China.

In Taiwan, the ex-president Ma Ying-jeou of the pro-Chinese party Kuomintang (KMT) finished his term on 19th May 2016. In the next morning, Tsai Ing-wen of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was sworn in for a first term at the office of the president. The change of leadership marked the suspension of Taiwan’s pro-Chinese policy.

In mid-2016, it was the time for the CCP to raise its bets on the Taliban and Afghanistan, as the prospects of taming Taiwan became dim. Two months later, the CCP no longer hid what it was doing with the Taliban.

The wording that the Global Times chose when it talked about the Taliban might illuminate the CCP’s intentions of interfering in Afghanistan. For example, the editorial claims that "China always standed for 'Afghan people administering Afghanistan'" (中国一直主张“阿人治阿”). The phrase “Afghan people administering Afghanistan” must ring a bell to many Hong Kongers.

What does it have anything to do with Hong Kong? Well, just think about " how the CCP has kept saying that it stand for "Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong" (港人治港) for decades. Then, look at what Hong Kong has become. "Pro-Beijing candidates are running uncontested for most seats in a Hong Kong election committee tasked with choosing the city's leader, with the pro-democracy camp almost absent," a Reuters news article on 13th August says.

If the subtext of the phrase 'Afghan people administering Afghanistan' is not clear enough, then keep reading the editorial in 2016. It writes in the concluding paragraph that "China apparently must not leave Afghanistan ‘unmananged’" (中国显然既不能“不管”阿富汗). In other words, to leave Afghanistan alone is not an option for the CCP.

What the CCP has been planning all these years is to get the Taliban to establish a pro-Chinese puppet régime in Afghanistan. Regardless of the legitimacy of the CCP's wish, that is what it wants. It is nothing new that the CCP is greedy. It wants Tibet, the Uyghur region in Xinjiang,  inner Mongolia, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, the millions square kilometers area in the South China Sea. Why would the CCP spare Afghanistan? In the CCP’s perspective, Afghanistan does not only share a border with Xinjiang but also has a history of being partially ruled by the Tang dynasty of ancient China.

It might seem unbelievable that the CCP is so full of itself trying to tame the Taliban and subsequently Afghanistan. However, the CCP believes that North Korea is to a certain extent tamable and therefore, so is the Taliban.

The CCP and the Taliban leaders have been meeting for many times and closely working together for years if not decades. The latest meeting allegedly took place not even 3 weeks before the Taliban seized Kabul. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a news statement on 28th July 2021, confirmed that China's State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi meeting with the delegation led by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Tianjin, China.

What did they talk about during the meeting? Who knows? Haven’t they talked about things regarding what was going to happen in the following 3 weeks? A news statement released from the Embassy of the China in Afghanistan on the 29 th July 2021(the next day of Wang Yi met the Taliban leaders) gives a clue. The statement titled ‘Once again to remind Chinese citizens in Afghanistan to evacuate’. It writes, “Currently, the security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (of China) and the Chinese Embassy in Afghanistan once again reminded Chinese citizens in Afghanistan to evacuate as soon as possible. If any Chinese citizens insist on staying in Afghanistan, they will face extremely high security risks, and they will bear all the consequences by themselves.” That is the full statement. The Chinese Embassy in Afghanistan does not explain what it mean by “extremely high security risks.”

What is worth noting is the phrase “once again.” The implication is straight forward. Indeed, the Chinese Embassy in Afghanistan did release a statement on the 27th May 2021, warning “Chinese citizens not to visit Afghanistan” and urging “Chinese citizens in Afghanistan to evacuate as soon as possible”. The statement mentions that the warning is valid until 31th December 2021.

As early as in May, the CCP knew things in Afghanistan were going to get ugly. In contrast, the US Embassy in Afghanistan did not urge the US citizens to evacuate until 7th August 2021.

When the US and allies shifting the security focus to the Indo-Pacific, the CCP is looking at a larger chess board stretching from Afghanistan to Taiwan. Whatever moves are made in one place between Kabul or Taipei, the CCP’s calculation includes the other.