{"id":81354,"date":"2022-03-31T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=81354"},"modified":"2022-03-31T11:29:12","modified_gmt":"2022-03-31T16:29:12","slug":"the-china-pakistan-economic-corridor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=81354","title":{"rendered":"The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Beginning Wednesday, China is playing host to a meeting in Tunxi ostensibly on Afghanistan and attendees include various neighbors of Afghanistan. Of greater interest are the side meetings<\/a> taking place there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China will host a series of meetings about Afghanistan on Wednesday, featuring representatives of Russia, the US, the Taliban, and South and Central Asian countries, as it ramps up diplomatic engagement with its troubled neighbour.<\/p>

The meetings in Tunxi, in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui, will be a rare instance of officials from Moscow and Washington meeting since Russia invaded Ukraine last month.<\/p>

The Chinese foreign ministry said on Tuesday that Yue Xiaoyong, China\u2019s special envoy to Afghanistan, would host counterparts from the United States, Russia and Pakistan for the latest \u201ctroika plus\u201d talks.<\/p>

The four-way meeting will be held on the sidelines of a conference of ministers from Afghanistan\u2019s neighbours, at which Foreign Minister Wang Yi will host ministers and officials from Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, the Chinese ministry said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Out of one of those side meetings came this little item<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreign Ministers of Russia and Iran Sergei Lavrov and Hossein Amir Abdollahian at a meeting in China confirmed the desire of both countries to strengthen cooperation in all areas, despite the sanctions imposed by Western countries against Moscow and Tehran, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement following the meeting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Russia talking with Iran, in China. What could go wrong? Even though Lavrov has a shooting war on his hands, and has a hostile West to deal with, he still found time to fly to eastern China. A sign, I think, of the value Lavrov saw in making the trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What form this joint sanction-busting cooperation might take is unclear, but there are other interesting things to keep an eye on here. China made this comment<\/a> at the conference (bold is mine)…<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Concerning Afghanistan; both Russia and China held meetings with the Taliban in Kabul last week, Wang Yi flying in to meet the Acting Foreign Minister and a Russian delegation holding similar, separate discussions. Russia\u2019s concerns are primarily security-focused, while China\u2019s are both security and infrastructure-focused \u2013 Wang stated after his Taliban meeting that China would be prepared to extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) into Afghanistan.<\/strong> Several important regional initiatives transits Afghanistan, including the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, which is partially online. Getting energy into Pakistan is key for its industrial development. Russia is also involved in this by agreeing to build the \u2018PID Initiative\u2018 a Russian-built pipeline that also supports CPEC.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

China has initiated a staggering array of projects to secure its resource and energy needs. One aspect of this is the multi-trillion-dollar-plus (Biden Administration: Hold my beer!) Belt and Road Initiative<\/a> (BRI). This new “Silk Road” involves a wide range of infrastructure projects to facilitate trade and the shipment of resources to and from China.

One part of this is the aforementioned China-Pakistan Economic Corridor<\/a>. The CPEC consists of a series of transport routes through Pakistan between Karachi as well as China’s massive port project in Gwadar<\/a> to the border with China in northeast Pakistan. Among other things, this land route down to Gwadar would let China bypass shipping cargo past a potentially hostile India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The fact that China is interested in pushing these infrastructure projects into Afghanistan is eye-opening. Security and cost have always been the main concerns about projects in Afghanistan. Who wants to invest millions there if the crazies in Afghanistan will blow up your project? The TAPI pipeline<\/a> has been in the works for awhile now, and China has also expressed interest in adding it to the CPEC network.

I doubt China cares a whit about the Afghan people, but it cares deeply about how Afghanistan might be exploited for its needs, and this conference is just a part of dealing with the security and financial concerns about doing business in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the US representative to this conference, Thomas West, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan, tweeted this week about an Afghan girls robotics team. Russia, Iran and China don’t give two flying figs about an Afghan girls robotics team. They are serious about their geopolitics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Congratulations, @RoyaMahboob<\/a> ! You embody what Afghans achieve through education. https:\/\/t.co\/ICo6ZpBhqd<\/a><\/p>— US4AfghanPeace (@US4AfghanPeace) March 26, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote>