Obama favours China over India in Afghan gameplan

As US president Barack Obama began his maiden tour of Asia on Friday, struggling to articulate a coherent US strategy in war-weary Afghanistan, there are growing signs that he may be looking to get a reluctant China to contribute more to the re-building effort there.

Such a move could have negative implications for India’s interests in Afghanistan, to defend which it has paid a high ‘blood price’, strategic affairs analysts told DNA.
A team of US officials headed by Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador for Af-Pak affairs, is in Beijing days ahead of Obama’s visit to China as part of an eight-day tour of Asia, which began on Friday. “I hope they’re not just trading notes; I hope the Americans are asking China to do more in Afghanistan,” says David Shambaugh, director of the China Policy Program at the George Washington University and a visiting scholar at the Beijing-based China Academy of Social Sciences.

China, he adds, has “a great deal” to contribute in the civilian and domestic security space in Afghani-stan — in training the police force and building infrastructure such as schools, “both of which the Chinese do very well”.   

That, he reasons, would free up overstretched Nato troops to carry out their military mission more effectively.

In recent weeks, the Obama administration has been grappling with a decision on the wisdom of sending up to 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, even as attacks by jihadi and Taliban forces have escalated in intensity in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Tokyo on Friday, Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama announced at a joint news conference with Obama that his government would end Japan’s Indian Ocean refuelling mission that support US-led forces in Afghanistan, but would contribute to infrastructure building and training efforts.

Shambaugh concedes that India might be “concerned” if China does go into Afghanistan. “But on the other hand, India is also concerned about the Taliban and the radical Islamicisation of the neighbourhood… So to the extent that Afghanistan is stabilised, it serves India’s long-term national security interest. And if China can contribute to that, India ought to be receptive to it.”

However, analysts say that that’s an overly benign characterisation of China’s possible involvement - even though China has so far been reluctant to get drawn into the Afghan mission (since it’s not mandated by the UN). “The Obama administration is practically rolling out an Afghan red carpet for China,” points out a Singapore-based analyst. “That is potentially bad news for India, which has paid a huge blood price for its strategic foothold in Afghanistan.”

China’s strategic interest in Afghanistan is closely aligned with that of Pakistan, which has been accused of undermining the Afghan government’s authority and masterminding the attacks on the Indian embassy in Kabul. And China, the analyst points out, “has sought to draw specious connections between the Afghan problem and the Kashmir issue.” For the Obama administration to now invite China into Afghanistan “is to give someone who’s had a free ride until now the keys to the kingdom”.