Beijing and Moscow seize the opportunity

The western countries closed their embassies in Kabul after the Taliban’s victory, and their diplomats and employees are on the run. Only three countries are currently keeping their representations open in the Afghan capital: neighboring Pakistan, China and Russia.

Russia has not yet decided whether the new leadership will be officially recognized. This is dependent on their behavior, it was said in Moscow. On the other hand, after the Taliban’s victory, China was the first country to agree to “friendly relations” with the new rulers.

In Russia as well as in China, the Taliban were welcome interlocutors. At the end of July, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Ji met Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin. He had already signed the agreement between the Islamist militia and the USA in February 2020.

The difference to the Taliban’s first takeover of power in Afghanistan in 1996 could hardly be greater. At that time, the Chinese leadership refused to recognize the Taliban government. The Chinese embassy remained closed for years. Only after the Western military intervention and the overthrow of the Taliban did China resume diplomatic relations with Afghanistan.

Even today, Beijing should be concerned that Islamists are coming to power again in Kabul. The two states are linked by a 76-kilometer-long border, and directly behind this border is the Chinese province of Xinjiang, where the Muslim Uyghur minority lives. According to the official Chinese interpretation, there were forces in this province who want to establish an Islamist state there. The Chinese leadership detained hundreds of thousands of Muslims in re-education camps in Xinjiang.

China’s foreign minister is hoping for a “moderate Islamist policy” by the Taliban

From Beijing’s point of view, it must now be prevented that Islamist forces from Xinjiang use Afghanistan as a retreat in the future. This is said to have been the subject of the meeting at the end of July. China’s Foreign Minister Wang said after talks with the Taliban that he hoped Afghanistan would pursue “moderate Islamist policies”.

The Taliban, in turn, said after speaking with Beijing’s foreign minister that they hoped that China could play a greater economic role in Afghanistan in the future. The country urgently needs international aid. China has already invested billions in its resource-rich neighboring country.

But more important than economic considerations for the leadership in Beijing is the propaganda success, which the victory of the Taliban and, above all, the images of the withdrawal of the Americans can be converted into. China’s state news agency Xinhua described the US withdrawal in a commentary as a “death knell for the declining US hegemony”. In the reading of Chinese propaganda, however, the events in Kabul are also intended to be a warning example for Taiwan, the message being that in the end one cannot rely on the support of the Americans.

Propaganda machinery benefits from America’s loss of reputation

The damage done to the reputation of the US and its Western allies by the events of the past few days is giving both China and Russia a boost. The propaganda machinery of both states could benefit from these images for a long time to come.

The Taliban’s goals are also unclear for Russia, however, and the Kremlin assumes that they can change quickly depending on changing situations, the Carnegie Foundation’s Moscow Center wrote in an analysis back in March. In Russia, the traumas of their own defeat in Afghanistan are having an impact. But memories of it are now missing from any official commentary on the events. Only the USA made mistakes.

Afghanistan continues to be of strategic importance to the Kremlin – not least to score points in the geopolitical dispute with the USA. However, Russian interests and problems are complex: On the one hand, Moscow now needs a stable Taliban rule in Kabul, a government that does not force its own people to flee to Russia’s Central Asian allies and that curbs the drug trade. On the other hand, the Taliban must not become so successful that they become a role model for Islamist extremists in Central Asia or in Russia itself.

The Kremlin’s foreign policy makers firmly believe that the Taliban’s takeover is less dangerous for Russia than it is for the United States. A key figure in Afghanistan policy is Putin’s special envoy Samir Kabulov, head of the Foreign Ministry’s 2nd Asia Department. Since January he has been negotiating behind the scenes and most recently on the open stage with the Taliban leaders.

Taliban are a banned organization in Russia

Strictly speaking, he made himself a criminal offense. The Taliban are still a banned extremist organization in Russia and any contact with them can be punished with imprisonment. This has grotesque consequences in media coverage. After the word “Taliban”, the following must be added: “Organization prohibited in Russia”.

Kabulov prepared Russia for the change of power in a large number of rounds of negotiations in Moscow. The Kremlin, which so often and so fondly uses terms such as “non-interference” and “sovereignty of other states”, did not show the slightest consideration in the case of Kabul. Representatives of the government of Afghanistan were not invited to any of the meetings in the Russian capital.

In addition, the special envoy Kabulov even made himself a lawyer for the Taliban after the last meeting. Unlike the United States, they would adhere to all agreements on American troop withdrawal, claimed Kabulov. If you look at the Russian power structures, it is clear that an official of this rank does not make any personal statements on such a sensitive issue.