China Preparing to Recognize Taliban if Kabul Falls

 China is prepared to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan if it succeeds in toppling the Western-backed government in Kabul, U.S. News has learned, a prospect that undercuts the Biden administration's remaining source of leverage over the insurgent network as it continues its startling campaign to regain control.

Beijing has publicly pressured the Taliban to continue working toward a peace agreement with President Ashraf Ghani's government – an outcome China appears to genuinely prefer and one the U.S. has pressed with growing urgency. However, new Chinese military and intelligence assessments of the realities on the ground in Afghanistan have prompted leaders in the Chinese Communist Party to prepare to formalize their relationship with the insurgent network, according to multiple U.S. and foreign intelligence sources familiar with the Chinese assessments.

The move comes as the Taliban has been routing Afghan forces – as of Thursday afternoon it had overrun 10 major provincial capitals, including one near Kabul, sometimes uncontested, along with key territory that connects with China's border. And it also undermines U.S. attempts to try to pressure the insurgent group to return in good faith to diplomatic negotiations in Doha, Qatar, where America's envoy returned this week for new talks.

"If the Taliban claim to want international legitimacy, these actions are not going to get them the legitimacy they seek," White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Friday. "They could choose to devote the same energy to their peace process as they are to their military campaign. We strongly urge them to do so."

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to requests for comment.

At stake for Beijing are agreements it has already secured from the Taliban not to harbor inside Afghanistan any Islamic extremists with designs to wage insurgencies in parts of western China, notably the restive Xinjiang province – a promise that far exceeds anything the U.S. has been able to extract with regard to the persistent threats of al-Qaida operatives partnered with the Taliban.

Any sort of stability in Afghanistan would also allow China to reap the benefits of prior economic investments in the region, including mineral rights in Afghanistan. Buried in the latest report from the U.S. inspector general overseeing reconstruction in Afghanistan was a little-noticed observation that China has dramatically increased its economic interests in Afghanistan recently, encouraging the completion of a road in the Wakhan Corridor – the sliver of land connecting the two countries. It cited an Afghan Public Works Ministry spokesperson who said, "China has expressed a huge interest for investment in Afghanistan, particularly in the mining sector, and this road will be good for that, too." The Taliban recently seized wide swaths of that territory as part of an apparent campaign to control Afghanistan's northern border crossings. 

China also seeks stability in Afghanistan for the sake of regional infrastructure projects it's already pursuing in neighboring Pakistan as a part of similar investments globally known as the Belt and Road Initiative.

Indeed, Pakistan appears at the center of the growing relationship between China and the Taliban, with Beijing relying on it for interpreting the cultural and linguistic divide. Pakistan in turn has come under increased Chinese influence through the growing number of economic investments Beijing has funded there, notably the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor or CPEC that flows through regions in the north where Taliban networks have sought refuge – apparently with at least some complicity from Pakistan's influential military.