Afghanistan Post-NATO withdrawal and the role of China
A war begun with no wise purpose, brought to an end after sufferings and disaster, without any glory attained by the government who directed it, or to the nations who waged it with their troops, even without achieving any political or military gain, or a benefit of any other sort.
These whisperings – which were noted from the Western media at the time of NATO troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan’s mission – were comprehensively analyzed and presented by Dr. Najam Abbas, a senior fellow at the East West Institute, who was addressing a session ‘Afghanistan Post NATO Withdrawal and the role of China’, held at the Institute of Policy Studies, Islamabad, on January 02, 2015.
In his presentation, the scholar focused on the effectiveness of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), stating that in the SCO forum, the matter of Afghanistan has remained on the sidelines without notable attention being paid to the collective actions or joint initiatives to be taken by the member states over the matter. For that very reason, he said, the SCO’s deliberations have looked more like the declarations of intent rather than the potent solution to the problem.
The speaker also felt that the SCO needs to re-align its collective actions with its maintained narrative over Afghanistan issue and step up to its potential by playing greater role and offering concrete measures in this regards. The failure in doing so, he feared, could hamper SCO’s effectiveness and risks in the future.
Dr. Najam also stated that ever since the SCO summit in September 2014 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, the Chinese authorities had been vocal about the need to play more active role to help Afghanistan normalize in terms of stability, economic security and development in the larger interest of greater regional peace and progress. This watershed, according to him, marks turning of a new page, where China, individually as well as under SCO, will assume further role bilaterally and multilaterally in Afghanistan.
Senior IPS associates Amb. (r) Ayaz Wazir, Cdr (r) Dr. Azhar Ahmad and Squadron Leader (r) Tariq Abdul Majid also shared their insightful views on the building scenarios vis-à-vis Afghanistan as well as the regional situation.
