The rapid advance of the Taliban since May set regional governments on edge, with Tajikistan and Pakistan rushing troops to their borderlands, and Russia and China conducting military and security drills in Tajikistan as well, amid fears the war could spill across the porous, high-altitude borders.
Chinese security experts traveled to the Tajik capital of Dushanbe on Wednesday for two days of joint security drills with their counterparts in the mountainous nation. Dubbed the “Counterterrorism Collaboration 2021” exercises, the drills were planned in advance and are part of a longstanding security collaboration between the two nations.
However, the exercises have taken on a new urgency as the Taliban’s blitz on the Afghan government encountered wild success over the weekend, sending the Afghan military into complete collapse and former President Ashraf Ghani fleeing the country as Kabul surrendered without a fight.
Zhao said the exercises “would enhance the level of operational readiness of the counterterrorism forces of the two sides to practise counterterrorism skills, and demonstrate the determination of both sides to combat terrorism and effectively respond to the terrorist threats faced by both countries.”
Chinese State Councilor Zhao Kezhi, also minister of public security, meets with Tajik Interior Minister Ramazon Rahimzoda in Beijing, capital of China, March 28, 2019.
China’s primary concern in Central Asia is stability, particularly in Afghanistan, where Beijing hopes to convince the Taliban to end its support for terrorist groups like the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which in the past has been allowed refuge in Taliban-controlled territory. The terrorist group seeks to separate China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region, which shares a narrow border with Afghanistan, from the rest of China and is responsible for numerous deadly acts of terrorism in China.
Last month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on a visit to Dushanbe that if a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan wants to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a Eurasian political, economic and security bloc, it will have to prove it can rule in a “responsible” manner, including rejecting terrorism and building an inclusive government. Afghanistan has been an observer since 2005.
China and Tajikistan have cooperated on military and other security issues since 2006, via the SCO. Late last month, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and Chinese State Councilor and Minister of National Defense Wei Fenghe agreed on the need to enhance security cooperation, particularly on controlling the spread of terrorism across international borders, according to Xinhua News Agency.
Chinese and Tajik soldiers pass in review at the end of the “Cooperation-2019” China-Tajikistan joint counter-terrorism exercise at the Jilondi training range in Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajikistan, August 16, 2019.
China and Tajikistan, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan, have cooperated on counter-terrorist efforts since 2016 via the Quadrilateral Cooperation and Coordination Mechanism (QCCM). The following year, relations between Pakistan and the now-former Afghan government broke down after Ghani accused Islamabad of waging an “undeclared war of aggression,” Dushanbe-Beijing relations further flourished.
According to unconfirmed western reports, a deployment of between dozens and hundreds of Chinese troops have been posted since then in far eastern Tajikistan, along the closest road to China’s remote 47-mile border with Afghanistan.
The US has accused China of genocidal policies against the Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang in its efforts to clamp down on terrorist groups like ETIM; Beijing has countered that its rehabilitation and training programs for former extremists are voluntary and in line with the United Nations’ Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism guidelines.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
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