When the world is focused on Russia-Ukraine conflict, another geopolitical catastrophe created by the United States and its NATO allies is deliberately neglected. Since the arbitrary and hasty withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops in August 2021, the scarred country is facing increasingly severe humanitarian crisis. As its close neighbour and friend, China has provided Afghanistan in time with nearly 300 million yuan worth of emergency humanitarian assistance, and is actively preparing for the third meeting of foreign ministers of the countries neighbouring Afghanistan, which will promote the long-term peace and stability in Afghanistan with the advantage and positive force of its neighbour, while urging the US and its allies to take the concrete responsibility for Afghanistan’s peace and reconstruction.
After the radical political changes in Afghanistan in August last year, the first meeting of foreign ministers of its neighbouring countries held in September 2021 was indeed a timely and great pioneering work. It has formally started the mechanism for coordination and cooperation among Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries, confirmed the their political consensus on jointly dealing with the changes in the situation in Afghanistan, and highlighted the unique role and reasonable concerns of these neighbouring countries, drawing more and more attention from the international community with greater expectations. It serves the interests of all parties including Afghanistan’s neighbour that it heads for peace, stability, economic development, ethnic harmony and good-neighbourliness.
Currently Afghanistan stands at a critical stage of transforming from chaos to governance, and Afghan people are facing a historic opportunity to truly master its own destiny and to explore a development path in line with its national conditions, while facing quadruple challenges, namely the humanitarian crisis, economic chaos, terrorist threats and governance difficulties.
After the Afghan Taliban’s interim government took power, it has repeatedly and clearly expressed that it values the calls from the international community, especially its neighbouring countries, and promised to further take active measures on its domestic and foreign policies. Meanwhile it admits that the country still faces difficulties in economic development, improvement of people’s livelihood and governance, and hopes to receive understanding and support from the international community. Many of Afghanistan’s neighbour, including China, expects the Afghan Taliban’s interim government to dedicate itself to establishing an open and inclusive political structure, implementing prudent policies and concretely combating terrorism.
Since its establishment, the Afghan interim government has actively engaged in international exchange and taken active measures to respond to the expectations of the international community. Meanwhile, the international community should adhere to the Afghan-led and Afghan-owned principle, strengthen contacts with the Afghan interim government and all other stakeholders, and gradually restore economic development, order, and rule of law in the country. Looking to the future, Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries can certainly continue making the most of its advantages and unique roles, and with joint force promoting the smooth transition and reconstruction of Afghanistan, thus contributing to the long-term peace and stability in the country, and to the regional peace, stability and development as a whole.
Despite the efforts by its neighbouring countries to actively promote the improvement of situation in Afghanistan, no one can replace the US and its allies and take their responsibility for restoration of peace and reconstruction in Afghanistan after the 20-year Afghan war waged by them. Because of the irresponsible U.S. troop withdrawal, Afghanistan is now facing unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
90 per cent of Afghan population are faced with starvation, the banking and currency are collapsing, and the distorted war economy is going bankrupt, leading to mass unemployment and a large scale outflow of refugees. Afghan people can hardly withdraw cash from their bank accounts, government employees can not receive their salaries, local corporations are unable to raise capital and inflation rises sharply. As the UN World Food Programme put it, unless the timely arrival of emergency food and medical supplies, “an already horrendous situation is just going to become an absolute catastrophe, a complete humanitarian disaster”.
After the situation changes in Afghanistan, the U.S. government has frozen 7-billion-U.S. dollar assets of the country’s central bank in the name of punishing Afghan Taliban. In February, President Biden signed the Executive Order to arbitrarily split the assets, with 3.5 billion dollars of them transferred into the so-called The Afghanistan Humanitarian Trust Fund and 3.5 billion more dollars planned to compensate 9/11 victims. When Afghanistan is suffering from political instability and food scarcity, the action by the U.S. government is no different from daylight robbery of Afghan assets, which is shocking to the whole world.
Afghan assets belong to Afghan people, and the US should return them to Afghan people immediately and unconditionally to solve the increasingly severe humanitarian crisis in the country. Besides, the US and its allies should increase their humanitarian aid to Afghanistan without political preconditions, help it improve its people’s livelihood and activate its financial and commercial activities, concretely fulfilling their responsibility for the reconstruction of the country.
The US is the culprit of the Afghan issue, yet by now no court or other legal mechanism has been established to seriously investigate into the indiscriminate killings of Afghan civilians by U.S. troop, which still makes Afghan people feel hurt today. According to the Associated Press, from October 2001 to August 2021, the military operation by U.S. and NATO troops have resulted in at least 66 000 deaths of Afghan national military and police, over 47 000 deaths of civilians and around 11 million refugees.
The Pentagon also admitted that the U.S. military has executed nearly 100 000 airstrikes in Afghanistan, resulting in massive civilian casualties, 40 per cent of whom were children, while these innocent dead could hardly be compensated. The U.S. government shall take the initiative to burden its responsibility for the Afghan war, and seek accountability for the serious violations caused by U.S. troop, so that thousands of innocent Afghan civilians could rest in peace and Afghan people could feel consoled.
In other words, though the US and its NATO allies have ended the Afghan war, they still burden the primary responsibility for Afghanistan’s peace and reconstruction, especially the humanitarian catastrophe and its profound impact brought by the war.
As a good neighbour and sincere friend, China has been deeply concerned with the development of situation in Afghanistan, and actively promoting Afghanistan’s integration into regional peace and development. During the past two years, China has donated to Afghanistan 700 000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine and a large amount of supplies to fight against toe pandemic, including ventilators, masks and protective suits. After the situation changes in Afghanistan, China has been accelerating the implementation of a series of aid programmes, including vaccine, food, winter supplies, medical supplies and projects for people’s wellbeing. Transported to the country by land, sea and air, they could help Afghan people live through the difficulties. China has also enhanced bilateral trade, bringing Afghan farmers and merchants hundreds-of-millions-U.S. dollar income, improving local people’s livelihood with firm actions.
In the future, it is believed that China, along with all the Afghan stakeholders including its neighbouring countries, will continue making the most of effective multilateral mechanisms, such as the meeting of foreign ministers of Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries, to support Afghanistan with humanitarian assistance and economic reconstruction, while urging the US and its NATO allies to take the concrete responsibility for bringing peace, development, stability and order back to Afghan people.
by Lan Jianxue, Director of Department for Asia-Pacific Studies, China Institute of International Studies
