China could prove ultimate winner in Afghanistan

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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CHINAS_REACH_AFGHANISTAN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-01-26-13-15-20

Jan 26, 2013 1:15 PM EST
China could prove ultimate winner in Afghanistan
By DENIS D. GRAY

KABUL (AP) -- China, long a bystander to the conflict in Afghanistan, is stepping up its involvement as U.S.-led forces prepare to withdraw, attracted by the country's vast mineral resources but concerned that any post-2014 chaos could embolden Islamist insurgents in its own territory.

Cheered on by the U.S. and other Western governments, which see Asia's giant as a potentially stabilizing force, China could prove the ultimate winner in Afghanistan - having shed no blood and not much aid.

Security - or the lack of it - remains the key challenge: Chinese enterprises have already bagged three multibillion dollar investment projects, but they won't be able to go forward unless conditions get safer. While the Chinese do not appear ready to rush into any vacuum left by the withdrawal of foreign troops, a definite shift toward a more hands-on approach to Afghanistan is under way.

Beijing signed a strategic partnership last summer with the war-torn country. This was followed in September with a trip to Kabul by its top security official, the first by a leading Chinese government figure in 46 years, and the announcement that China would train 300 Afghan police officers. China is also showing signs of willingness to help negotiate a peace agreement as NATO prepares to pull out in two years.

[DonCoquixote]

1. In other words

WE need to get out of there so that China can be the next empire to sink in the quagmire.

[kenny blankenship]

4. I don't ascribe inscrutable, super-subtlety to the Chinese

neither in speaking of the people nor their leadership - that's a Eurocentric stereotype long used to justify the west's unjust colonial dealings with China and Asia generally.

Still, I don't think the Chinese are stupid enough to Double Down on Afghanistan like you know who was. They have many of these rare minerals themselves in China, so rapidly exploiting them in Afghanistan to some extent would be unnecessarily undercutting the value of some of their own resources. They can wait for more favorable circumstances to arise, profit in the meantime, and position themselves in Afghanistan for the future in ways that will be closed to the US as the former occupier.

[madrchsod]

2. the chinese track record in africa is not very good

i think it will be even worse in afganistan

[stuffmatters]

3. Same R olling of the USA Taxpayer as Keystone Pipeline and Iraq

American taxpayers pay the costs ( in war trillions, deaths and staggering health costs, and disgrace on the international stage); Halliburton to Koch Bros skim off the conduiting profits, and China gets the bounty. Forever.

In Iraq China ultimately got the oil contracts, in Afghanistan they'll get the cyber mineral contracts. With Keystone the US pays for the pollution (starting with the leaky pipes Transcanada has already purchased from China), we pick up the tab forever of the endless environmental and health consequences, while this "filthy crap" poisons our country and is shipped off (in Texas tax free zones and Koch Bros refineries) to China.

It's such a simple and obscene business model. When are American taxpayers going to connect the dots.