China eyeing power grab off chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan

Top foreign policy experts warned Wednesday that China is looking to profit from what critics are calling the U.S.' disorganized and inept withdrawal from Afghanistan.

This is an "opportunity to further their bid to destabilize U.S. alliances, not just in the Indo-Pacific but in the Middle East," Eric Brown, a senior fellow specializing in Asian and Middle East affairs at the Hudson Institute, told Fox News.

"Further to that, I think they are also going to use the perception of American unreliability – thanks to the messy and disgraceful withdrawal – to press its influence. It’s going to try and take advantage of this situation," he said, referring to the People’s Republic of China. 

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Chinese state-controlled media have revved up their critical rhetoric surrounding the Taliban’s lightning takeover of Afghanistan following the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces. 

The Global Times, a hawkish tabloid supported by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), called the coup a "U.S. humiliation" and claimed it showed the U.S. "cannot win a war anymore."

The daily publication has used its platform to suggest nations like Taiwan cannot expect to receive the full backing of the U.S. – despite American financial and military assistance awarded to Taipei.

China, which contests Taiwan as a part of its territory under the "one-China policy," has engaged in increased military activity with the U.S. in the South China Sea. 

"U.S. just showed the world that it’s unable or unwilling to confront a small adversary in Afghanistan with very basic weapons," the Global Times wrote in a Wednesday tweet. "So in the future, when it urges its allies to challenge major powers like China and Russia, very few would follow."

Just two days after Kabul fell to the Taliban, China launched assault drills just off the southern coast of Taiwan with warships and fighter jets. 

The People's Liberation Army claimed the drills were necessary to protect "national sovereignty."

But senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Zack Cooper, who studies US strategy in Asia, told Fox News, "It is in the Chinese government's interests to try and convince Americans that China is going to press ahead on Taiwan."

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"I think we have to avoid falling for some of that Chinese propaganda," he added. "There's a reason that China today is not invading Taiwan, and that's because they are concerned about their ability to carry off invasion at an acceptable cost, and I don't think what's happened in Afghanistan fundamentally changes that decision."

Instead, Cooper argued the cause for greater concern lies within Afghanistan.

"There are real opportunities here for China," the AEI senior fellow said. "China has been very deeply engaged with Pakistan through the Belt and Road initiative. And I think we'll see the possibility of more Belt and Road investment into Afghanistan."

The Belt and Road Initiative is a global scheme aimed at bolstering China’s economic prowess through trade routes across Asia, Africa and Europe. 

Pakistan entered into an agreement with China more than six years ago as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – which would make trade cheaper and more efficient through modernizing transportation networks and port connectivity. 

China met with Taliban leaders last month after the insurgent group had already started making aggressive advances across Afghanistan.

Though Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at the time that he told Taliban leaders he expected them to play an "important role" in peacemaking, Cooper argued China "understood the direction that things were likely to go in Afghanistan."

"I think that is a clear sign that the Chinese were trying to lean pretty far forward in terms of engaging the Taliban," he said. "They're trying to make sure that they can have as much influence there as possible."

Foreign policy expert Patrick Cronin told Fox News that China’s interest in securing ties with the Taliban is linked to hopes the group will not become a threat to its foreign and domestic agendas.

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"They have a long-term economic interest. Obviously, it ties very much to the geopolitical interests of Pakistan," said Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute. "And now they have the prospect of that threat of terrorism to their major investments going into Pakistan."

Cronin argued China has taken an interest in establishing ties with the Taliban in an effort to prevent terrorism and extremism from seeping across its borders. Afghanistan sits next to China's restive Xinjiang province, where Chinese leaders are accused of committing genocide.

Hudson Institute senior fellow Eric Brown said he believes China will exert influence in Afghanistan to shore up the Belt and Road Initiative without engaging too deeply in the country.

"I don't think from the perspective of Beijing, that they have an interest in shoring up an Afghan nation," Brown said. "They have a far more limited idea of what it is that they want to achieve there, and that's to keep Afghanistan from potentially affecting its…larger security of its Belt and Road continental empire."

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"I think that there's a natural desire on the part of PRC, not to get overstretched in Afghanistan to the extent that it will get involved," he added.

Afghanistan is believed to be a mineral-rich nation with some $1 trillion worth of resources like copper, aluminum, gold and silver – resources Brown argued the PRC will want to utilize.

The Hudson Institute senior fellow argued China's interest will lie in "extractive industries" that "will buy favor and political influence with the Taliban."