Confronto della politica estera di Cina e India verso l’Afghanistan.
(Commento di un articolo di Reuters sul coinvolgimento della Cina in Afghanistan)
– India e Cina sono due potenza nell’Asia Centrale, e hanno influenza sul regime di Hamid Karzai.
– Secondo l’agenzia Reuters la Cina avrebbe maggiore chiarezza sulle proprie priorità,
o non intende seguire le orme di GB, Urss o Usa,
o non intende neppure usare il paese per attestarsi contro Giappone o Usa;
o pur stando in guardia contro i progetti Nato e Usa in Centro Asia, ritiene di poter difendere i propri interessi vitali, senza sprecare le proprie risorse in modo avventuristico.
– L’arma preferita dalla Cina è la diplomazia economica;
o gli Usa premono perché la Cina si impegni militarmente in Afghanistan e fornisca una via di trasporto verso di esso, ma Pechino è restia a farlo.
– L’India invece, benché geograficamente svantaggiata, vuole attestarsi di nuovo in Afghanistan, e da 6 anni chiede di partecipare alla guerra; gli Usa rifiutano.
– Secondo Reuters l’India non avrebbe imparato dalla storia: Nonostante le centinaia di milioni di $ spese dall’India a favore del regime di Najibullah o dell’Alleanza del Nord (AN), i signori della guerra dell’AN sono stati sconfitti.
o Userebbe meglio tutto il denaro che sta per essere usato per i signori della guerra afghani per sviluppare le aree arretrate di Ladah e Arunachal Pradesh che l’India reclama come propri.
Analisi: in Afghanistan la Cina cerca il profitto, evita la politica
– L’interscambio commercial Cina-Afghanistan, a luglio circa $1,149MD, è oggi solo una piccolo quota di quello con gli altri “stans”, è il 2% di quello con il Pakistan.
– La Cina, affamata di materie prime, è però attratta dalle ricche riserve di minerali dell’Afghanistan, rimaste intatte dopo decenni di guerra.
– Nel 2008 un consorzio cinese – formato dalla casa madre statale di MCC (Metallurgical Corp of China Ltd), e da Jiangxi Copper, il maggior produttore di rame della Cina, – ha siglato con l’Afghanistan un grande contratto minerario per lo sviluppo dei giacimenti di rame di Aynak, con depositi stimati in 9 mn. di tonnellate.
– Il progetto minerario è essenziale per sottrarre l’Afghanistan dalla dipendenza dagli aiuti esteri, che rappresentano ora la maggior parte del suo bilancio statale.
– La lentezza con cui questo tentativo avanza può ora andare bene ad alcuni funzionari di Pechino che non vogliono avere un impegno militare o di sicurezza in Afghanistan;
o impegno che rischierebbe di essere costoso e controverso come lo sono stati gli interventi delle potenze estere degli ultimi decenni (dell’Urss o dell’Occidente);
o la Cina non sarebbe inoltre pronta per e in grado di conquistarsi influenza politica (Hi Ming, vice rettore per gli studi internazionali della East China Normal University).
– L’ambiguità della Cina verso l’Afghanistan emerge nella sua esitazione ad aprire il confine con l’Afghanistan, che si trova a 76 km dalla fine delle vallate del Corridoio di Wakhan:
o Pechino teme che l’apertura di questo corridoio apra la strada ai guerriglieri islamici verso la sua regione ribelle del Xinjinag Occidentale, abitata da uighur musulmani.
o Pechino è interessata alla stabilità dell’Afghanistan, ma non vuole un serio impegno politico o militare.
– Ye Hailin, ricercatore dell’Accademia Cinese di scienze Sociali di Pechino:
o Per esercitare la propria influenza nella regione, Pechino ha sempre preferito il Pakistan, grande paese musulmano sovrano, all’Afghanistan lacerato dalla guerra e in attesa di ricostruzione.
– L’atteggiamento di attesa di Pechino sulle questioni politiche e di sicurezza non ha impedito che i suoi gruppi vadano a caccia di risorse e profitti:
o A settembre, CNPC (China National Petroleum Corp, grande gruppo petrolifero statale cinese) ha vinto una gara per un giacimento petrolifero nel Nord Afghanistan;
o I gruppi cinesi hanno già quote in quasi 40 progetti in Afghanistan, con contratti del valore di quasi $500 mn., a fine giugno; ricostruzione significa mercati, opportunità; gli investitori cinesi devono tenere gli occhi aperti soprattutto per energia, infrastrutture, commercio, servizi, elaborazione (Wu Gangchen, consigliere dell’ambasciata cinese, su International Business Daily).
By M K Bhadrakumar – October 6, 2011
– Reuters featured a story on China’s involvement in Afghanistan just when the Delhi newspapers are reporting that India just walked into the ‘great game’ in the Hindu Kush. Reading it from Thiruvanathapuram in the southern-most tip of India gives a surreal feeling. How much at variance are the preoccupations of our pundits in Delhi and the throbbing concerns of small-town folks in India! Yet another foreign-policy disconnect?
– The Afghan policies of China and India present a study in contrast. China is also a regional power like India and, arguably, China is not lacking ‘influence’ with the Hamid Karzai set-up in Kabul, either. Yet, Reuters’ thesis is that China is clear-headed and down-to-earth about its priorities and doesn’t want to follow the footsteps of Great Britain, USSR or USA.
– China also is averse to turning that desperately poor country into a turf for testing out hubris or for settling scores with adversaries like Japan or the US. China is suspicious of the US and Nato’s intentions in Central Asia (and the Islamists eyeing Xinjiang), but is confident about its intellectual capacity to optimally safeguard its vital interests and core concerns, while husbanding its resources from being squandered away in futile adventures. Funnily, it is China that is credited with an overbearing security establishment that dominates foreign-policy – and not India!
– Economic diplomacy is China’s preferred weapon. Unlike the case with India, US is pressing China for military involvement in Afghanistan and for providing a transportation route to that country.
– India, on the other hand, has been knocking at the American door for the past 6 years for some little role on the military front in Kabul, but US kept saying ‘Nyet’.
– China is sceptical of the wisdom of opening the Wakhan Corridor lest ‘foreign devils’ appear on the Silk Road. Whereas, India which is geographically at a disadvantage, still wants to flex muscles and project its power once again into Afghanistan.
– India doesn’t dip into historical memory. Some disturbing questions remain. What was the final outcome of the enormous commitment of resources to the Najibullah regime or the Northern Alliance? Najib got overthrown. NA was all but vanquished despite the hundreds of millions of dollars that Indian mandarins spent on the ‘warlords’.
Will history be any different this time? Why don’t we trust diplomacy? We too claim to have a robust economic diplomacy. The best course would have been to leave Pakistan to vainly try to manipulate the fiercely independent Afghans, and ultimately collapse from sheer exhaustion – sooner rather than later?
– The tons of money that is going to be spent on the Afghan warlords could have been used to develop the backward regions in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, which India claims as its territories. Reuters story is here.
Tagged with China-Afghanistan, China-India, India-Afghanistan, India-Pakistan, Wakhan Corridor.
– KABUL (Reuters) – The Chinese passengers boarding the weekly Ariana Flight 332 from the remote western city of Urumqi to Kabul speak volumes about ties between a rising China, the world’s number two economy, and its desperately poor and unstable neighbor, Afghanistan.
– Of at least nine Chinese, six were heading for a China-funded copper mine, two were working for a Chinese telecom equipment maker and one was the boss of a Chinese restaurant, struggling to check in several boxes of illicit supplies, from alcohol to frozen pork.
"The situation is not as bad as news reports suggest, and I am hoping to make money," said Li Xiaofeng, the restaurant owner, who is from the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang and opened his restaurant in Kabul last year.
– He is contributing to a tiny but growing trade flow between China and Afghanistan, which many in Kabul hope could be the country’s financial salvation as Western troops head home.
– Bilateral trade between China and Afghanistan is currently just a fraction of trade with other "stans" — the turnover of $114.9 million in the year through July was 2 percent of Sino-Pakistan trade.
– But the rich mineral reserves lying untapped in Afghanistan after decades of war are a tempting and potentially lucrative lure for resource-hungry China, whose companies have already shown an ability to operate profitably in hostile environments.
– A Chinese consortium in 2008 won Afghanistan’s first major mining contract, a deal to develop the Aynak copper deposits.
– The state-owned parent company of Metallurgical Corp of China Ltd (MCC) and China’s largest copper producer, Jiangxi Copper, are developing the mine, estimated to hold up to nine million tonnes.
– The project is the biggest component of plans to wean Afghanistan off foreign aid that currently makes up most of the government budget. But progress has been slower than expected.
"Officials in Kabul always said yes, but on the site, there are always a lot of problems to handle," one MCC official, who asked for anonymity, told Reuters.
MCC said in a statement that construction workers were currently idle as archaeological preservation works on a Buddhist monastery were under way.
– The slow development may actually suit some officials back in Beijing, who are anxious to avoid a military or security role in the central Asian country.
China wants to stay out of the diplomatic spotlight in Afghanistan, said He Ming, deputy dean at East China Normal University’s international studies college, who recently held an academic conference on Afghanistan.
– "It’s quite dangerous for China to play an active role in Afghanistan," he said, referring to the expense and controversy that followed most foreign intervention in Afghanistan in recent decades — whether Soviet or Western-led.
– "It’s okay for Chinese companies to start up projects there, but if you are talking about political influence … I don’t think China has the necessary conditions and abilities."
– Beijing’s ambiguous attitude to Kabul shows in official hesitance to open the border with Afghanistan. The frontier lies on a remote 76-km (47-mile) stretch of land at the end of the narrow valleys of the Wakhan Corridor.
But a dirt road leading up near China’s side of a high pass — reputedly used by Marco Polo — is not matched on the Afghan side, where farmers and herders still live much as they did centuries ago.
– China fears the spread of Islamic militancy from Afghanistan into its restive Western Xinjiang region, home to millions of Uighur Muslims, and instability in Afghanistan.
So it has an interest in Afghanistan’s future, but has also watched the Soviet Union[e] and the United States flounder there. As a result, Beijing plans to steer well clear of serious political or military engagement.
"China hopes there will be peace in Afghanistan, but as for what conditions there should be for peace, China has no seat on the negotiating table," said Ye Hailin, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.
– He added that Pakistan, rather than Afghanistan, was always Beijing’s top choice for exerting influence in the region.
"In China, the phrase ‘Af-Pak’ does not exist," he said, referring to a term often used by Western diplomats and policy-makers, who consider the neighbors and their problems so closely linked they should be tackled together.
– "Pakistan is a big Muslim sovereign nation; Afghanistan is a war-torn country eagerly awaiting reconstruction."
But the wait-and-see stance of Beijing when it comes to politics and security has not deterred Chinese firms’ hunt for precious resources and profit.
– In September, the China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), China’s state-owned oil giant, was chosen as a preferred bidder for an oil field in northern Afghanistan.
"China has no choice, it has to go out to find resources to ensure energy security," said Lin Boqiang, director of think-tank the Center for Chinese Energy Economics Research.
"For China’s state oil giants, they know clearly that they must take the risks, including risks in Afghanistan."
– Chinese firms already have a stake in nearly 40 projects in Afghanistan, with contracts worth nearly $500 million at the end of June, according to Wu Gangchen, the commercial counselor at the Chinese Embassy.
– "Reconstruction means markets, reconstruction means opportunity," Wu was quoted as saying in a recent interview with Beijing-based newspaper the International Business Daily.
– He urged Chinese investors to keep their eyes open for possible deals in Afghanistan, particularly in the sectors of "energy, infrastructure, trade, service and processing."
– CNPC appears to agree, and if it can finalize its intended oil deal with Kabul as expected in mid-October, it would be a good news for national airline Ariana as well. On the sunny Thursday flight, only about a third of the seats were taken.
(Editing by Emma Graham-Harrison)